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Yixing,The Father of TeaBy Wu De (Aaron Fisher)

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known about Gong Chuan, as he was but the humbleservant o a government ocer. Tere are many ver-sions o his story, though, and most o them involvesome kind o trip where he accompanied his master to aneighboring city. In his ree time, he vi sited the Jin Shaemple and drank tea wi th a monk there. Te monkwas an artist and had crated all his teaware himsel.Gong Chuan was amazed at the elegance and seren-ity expressed in the work and asked the monk to teachhim. Over the coming years, Gong Chuan would returnwhenever he got the chance and try his hand at makingthe rustic teapots, using only his hand and a wooden

spoon to orm them. He had a natural anity or clay,and soon started producing excellent teapots that werenot only beautiul, but produced better tea. He gitedone to his master, who was also a tea lover. As his mastershared tea with riends and amily, they would all askwhere he got the special teapot. In no time, all the gov-ernment ocials, artists and scholars in the town wereeverishly collecting Gong Chuans teapots. He becameamous, quickly earning enough to support himsel. Hismaster gladly released him rom service and he devotedthe rest o his lie to making teapots that expressed hisunderstanding o Cha Dao. From that point on, theart o Purple-sand teapots evolved and grew, spreadingthroughout China and beyond.

A big part o what makes Yixing teaware so

special is the clay i tsel. Te Chinese were master potterslong beore many countries, having developed stonewareand porcelain many centuries earlier. Te clay used inYixing teapots is mined rom the local Yellow Dragon,Zhao Zuang, Shao Mei Yao and Hu Fu mountains andtheir surroundings, or it, too, is a stoneware. Becausethe clay is naturally lead-ree, it can be used or ood anddrink even ater the initial ring, without the need or aglaze. Without glaze, the clay remains porous and sand-like.

Zisha or Purple-sand clay is composed oquartz, isinglass, kaolinite, mica, hematite, iron and sev-eral other trace elements. It is red at a temperature oaround 1100 -1800 degrees, and the quartz and isinglasscreate what potters call a double pore structure, which

ultimately was the ring that sealed its marriage to tea.Examination under a microscope allows one to see thedeep chambers o pores that actually run rom in sideto outside in an Yixing teapot. Because o that, the oilsin the tea are absorbed i nto the teapot itsel and overtime the pot gets seasoned, as tea lovers say. In otherwords, it absorbs the ragrance and depth o all the teasit has met in its time. Also, these pours allow the pot tobreathe.

During most o the ang Dynasty (618 907CE) tea was boiled in cauldrons with other ingredientsand then ladled out. Te tea itsel was compressed intocakes that were then ground into powder beore beingthrown into the cauldron. Later, Lu Yu promoted thedrinking o just the pure Lea, calling the liquor mixedwith ruits or owers gutter water.

In the Song Dynasty (960 1279 CE) the realart o tea would begin in the monasteries, as the monkssought to rene their peaceulness and connection totea, by crating bowls, whisks, grinders and other imple-ments that lent tea preparation an artistic expression like

never beore. For the rst time, the tea ceremony wasbeing expressed aesthetically, attracting more people overtime.

During these two dynasties, tea would nd itsway to the royal court and beyond to the literati, who ocourse took to the new art with all the verve that suchartists, authors and scholars could bring to a passionthat incorporated their daily habits and deepest inspira-tions both. Tey, too, wanted to express the peace andserenity they had ound on the mountain while visitingthe monastery, to recapture it in some measure each daywhile they were at home. Tey wrote poems, calligraphy,books, painted pictures and o course made ceramics,like Song bowls to hold their beautiully whisked teas.

In the Ming Dynasty (1368 1644 CE) the

emperor would ban the use o powdered teas and all theart surrounding it would slowly die in China, though itwas ortunately preserved, adapted and urther exploredin Japan. Instead, he promoted the use o whole-leateas, like the ancestors o long ago. All o the artisticintention was shited towards this new orm o teapreparation. Even beore that, the town o Yixing, whichwas then called Yan Xian, was a pottery town, makingall kinds o cheap household items or commoners, likejugs, plates, etc. It would very soon change to the teapotcapital o the world, though.

According to an ancient legend, there was amonk named Ding Shu who walked through the townshouting, Honor and Virtue or sale! Tey say that allthe villagers laughed at him, thinking him mad until a

ew weeks later when he changed his pitch to, Richesor sale! Some people then ollowed him and he ledthem to the iron-rich deposits o clay ore that wouldmake the town amous or all the centuries to come.

During the reign o the Ming Emperor ZhengDe (1505 1521 CE), Yixing teapots were elevated intoan art orm. Historians oten attribute these changes tothe now-legendary gure o Gong Chuan. Not much i s

Qing Dynastyzisha zhu lun zu

Qing Dynastyz

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Yixing clay has almost perect plasticity, and canbe molded or cast without being sticky or dicult towork. However, due to the act that it isnt naturally sot,it is rarely ever wheel-thrown. In act, a unique traditiono handbuilding ceramics has arisen in Yixing, includingthe chracteristic techniques many authors translate asluting and paddling. Tis practice o building Yixingpots by hand has also led, over the years, to the creationo numerous unique tools, crated rom horn, wood,bamboo and even stone, and oten by the artists them-selves.

Furthering its connection to tea and teapots,

Yixing clay has one o the lowest shrinkage rates o anyclay, on average ten to twenty-ve percent rom produc-tion to ring, depending on the type o clay, the process-ing and the temperature o the kiln. Tis allows or theperect t o the lid and pot, as well as the porous tex-ture that makes them so great or brewing tea. Moreover,the quartz and other metallic elements in the clay itsellend it a natural, simple color. Te great potter GaoZhuang once said that what he loved most about Yixingart was that the appearance couldnt show its value, butrather its nature.

Te Earth couldnt have dreamed o a clay moresuited or tea, or Yixing clay comes rom deep mines,bringing that spirit and joy with it to the tea ceremony.One o the brightest masters i n the Pottery City today,

Ke ao Chung says, the art o Purple-Sand teaware isused to express the eelings the cratsman has or theEarth, and then to transcend them, so that people caneel the sotness and reedom revealed in the Earth. Ialso have ound such artistic, spiritual and even elemen-tal grandeur in holding my Yixin g potsthey are wiseand kind, and the way they improve our tea, by absorb-ing its essence and power and bringing it to all ouruture sessions, is nothing shy o miraculous.

Tey say that a Ming Emperor liked to leave thepalace incognito and wander the cities, going to tea-houses and other places to share in the conversations othe times. On one such excursion, dressed as a humblepeasant, the emperor was walking down a quiet street.Trough the window he saw an old armer preparing

tea. Te ceremony looked so harmonious and pleasant,the emperor couldnt resist and knocked lightly at thedoor. He politely asked the armer i he could join himand the armer smilingly acquiesced. Te liquor wasdark and deep, amazing the emperor. For several hoursthey sat in calm joy, content to just relax, basking inthe peace the dark tea inspired. When the time came toleave, the emperor asked the armer where he got s uch

Te composite structure o Yixing clay makes itresistant to radical temperature changes, so that teapotscan be covered with boiling water even in the cold owinter; and what could be a more elegant image thanwinter-plums covered in a light snow, perhaps pine-cov-ered mountains in the distance beyond a rozen pond, asseen over the rim o a steaming Yixing pot?

Ater the clay is mined it looks like a block ostone, with a aky consistency. It is then allowed to restin the air or weeks or even years, called corrosion, asit breaks down into small soy bean sized pebbles. Tesesmall chunks are then ground into sand and allowed to

erment in water or a period. Te duration depends onthe ore and the master overseeing the process, thoughmost o the old masters Ive met seemed to have a thelonger the better philosophy when it comes to airing/storing the ore. More water and siting produce smooth-er clay, whereas leaving more sand creates textured claythat is oten more porous when red. Siters o varioussizes are used to create these dierent textures. Ten, a-ter the clay is slabbed it is pounded with a large woodenmallet, sometimes blending colors in this way, until theputty is o the desired color and consistency.

Te variety o colors in Yixing relate to where inthe strata the ore was mined, how long it was allowedto erment in air over time, as well as the ring tem-perature. Hotter temperatures will oten produce darker

purple or redish-maroon colors depedning on the clay.raditionally, the clay was categorized as purple (zheni),red (hongni), green (liuni), black (heini) or brown/yellow(huangni). Some scholars and Yixing collectors, however,suggest that the clays should be classied by what moun-tain they were mined rom, rather than the color. Tis isbecause there have really been several dierent systemspresented by dierent authors through time, each oneseparating the clays in slightly dierent ways.

In recent years, there has been an addition o agreater variety o colors, mostly due to natural or man-made additives, like iron or example. Unortunately, asthe original ore has become more dicult to nd, syn-thetic pots as well as those constructed with clay romother regions have both begun to b e produced in larger

quantities.One kind o red clay pots, especially antique

ones, are the most expensive because this ore is virtuallynon-existent in its natural orm anymore. Furthermore,the greater shrinkage and more delicate consistency othese Zhuni pots make the success rate lower, as manywont match their lid or get broken in the process. AllZhunipots are at least in part blended with some otherkind o clay to increase their stability.

Qing Dynasty

famous po

Qing Dynasty duanni yao bian zhu lun zu

Heart Sutra carved around the pot

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Much like the aged and wise tea leaves, Yix-ing pots have a kind o consciousness and even destiny.Tey seem to have a bond with their owners, as theyare passed down through time. Walking into a store ullo teapots, ve separate tea lovers will be drawn to veseparate pots without being able to explain why. Tesepots then become like dear riends, traveling with usover time as we progress. Tere are times when I entermy tea room undecided about which tea to drink andnd mysel choosing not based on which lea I thinksuits the day, but which teapot I wish to hold. A simpleYixing pot resting on a small plate, ramed by moun-

tains, is an image that or me carries all the peace andbliss o the tea ceremony with it.

I imagine mysel living in some rural town, wi th mythree Yixing pots and three jars o tea. Ater a hard dayswork, I cant wait to return home to these riends eachnight. I spend the evenings drunk on old teas, pouredrom small Yixing pots that have been in my amily orgenerations, watching the sun set behind the abundanceo distant peaks.

Gentle riend,Smooth sand steaming;Open and accepting,Endlessly so,A orest o leaves you have held and let go,An ocean o water you have transormedA ont o deep, interminable ambrosia.o you I turn once again or my grace,My peace,My everything.

Gentle riend,May your stream never end,Changing generations o leaves and watero golden cups o tranquility,

Long ater I am gone.

amazing tea rom. Te armer replied, Im sorry sir, Iam but a poor armer and cant aord any tea at all; Ihave only this old Yixing pot used by my ather and hisather beore him. Holding the empty pot up or theemperors inspection, he saw that the pot was seasonedenough to create such deep liquor with just water alone.Te next day, the emperor sent a bag o gold coins to thearmers house and arranged a caravan to leave or Yixingthe very next day.

Over the years, the art o Yixing would evolve,incorporating all the other art orms i n the MiddleKingdom. Since most artists, o any kind, were also tea

lovers, pots soon had calligraphy, painting, seal-carvingand even poetry on their sides as ornamentation. Someo the most sought ater teapots were ones made byamous potters and artists together, one creating the potand the other painting it or carving the calligraphy.

Eventually, two main styles would developbased on the dierences in the tea art o the North andSouth. In the northern cities, near the capital, it wasmostly government ocials that collected teapots. Teywanted larger pots to serve many guests, with a lot oornamentation to show o their power and afuence. Inthe South, businessmen and commoners alike all dranktea every day. Tey preerred simple, small pots to maketea or themselves and their riends. Tere were regionalexceptions to these trends. Tough not associated with

North, South or any particular region, these styles con-tinue even today, and they have diversied, as genera-tions o potters have innovated and creatively expandedthe art and its expression, technique and method. I haveound that the so-called southern style pots are otenmore conducive to a harmonious tea ceremony, though,as serving tea to large groups is usually more o a socialoccasion and the tea is but meant to establish warmthand comort so guests may converse more reely. While Iappreciate the more heavily-decorated pots made in thisvein, I nd more inspiration in the simple elegance othe small pots.

Over the years, potters would develop new claycompositions and ormulas, rening the process somuch that a whole class o clay masters would develop.

Tese men didnt actually make teapots, they just renedthe clay with enough mastery to surpass what the pottersthemselves could do. And the potters, then, were ree todevelop new techniques and methods o expressing themany sentiments o tea. O course, some artists wereboth expert potters and clay masters as well; but thetradition o having clay masters at all is perhaps uniqueto the Pottery City.

The Leaf

Qing Dynastyzhuni

Qing Dynastyzhuni

Ming Dynastyzish