Designed by Mei Leaf in collaboration with the expertise of our potters in Jianshui. This approx 150ml pot features the 'Hui' design and is a super-fast pouring pot perfect for most types of tea. Very Limited Stock. PLEASE NOTE THAT AS THESE ARE ALL FULLY HANDMADE THERE WILL BE SOME DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PICTURES AND INDIVIDUAL POTS. The capacity is slightly larger than the first run of pots.

Our 'Hui' pot has been designed to match perfectly with our 'Gan' cup and 'Yun' Gong Dao Bei. The shape of the pot is wide-based making it feel very stable with its low centre of gravity. This shape is suitable for all types of tea with plenty of room for the leaves to brew. The wide opening allows for filling the pot with ease no matter which shape leaves.

The 'Hui' symbol is taken from ancient Chinese character styles known as Seal or Liushutong style. I love the graphic quality of these characters to give the clayware a hybrid traditional and modern aesthetic with meaning.

The 'Hui' character means 'returning to the original source/place' and is often used in tea to describe a returning sweetness ('Hui Gan') on the tongue which comes from a transformation of bitterness to sweetness.

I like the character's connection to this description of tea (it pairs perfectly with our 'Gan' cups), but I also think that there is something symbolic about the pot returning the dry leaves to their original state - from dry and muted to hydrated and aromatic after months or years of waiting.

ABOUT JIANSHUI ZITAO

All of our Jianhsui teaware is made by the potter in the video below and is handcrafted individually. Read more about the unique Jianshui production process below. Every piece is totally individual and there are natural variations in colour and design. PLEASE NOTE: the gold characters on this teaware is not painted on. These are inlays of coloured clay. The teaware has to be engraved and then filled in with the coloured clay before firing. Then the wares have to be carefully sanded and polished to make a smooth surface with no blurring between the colours. This simple design actually takes a lot of work and skill.

Jianshui clay is lesser known than its cousins, Yixing purple clay and Chaozhou red clay but Jianshui has a long history of clay teaware making and a unique style and character which we love at Mei Leaf.

The clay used comes from five different ores from the surrounding hills around Jianshui in Yunnan. The five ores (white, yellow, purple, cyan and five colour) are blended and cured to make a clay which is strong and stable with excellent heat retention and tea softening qualities.

Once the clay has been made, it is kneaded and thrown on the potter's wheel to be formed by hand without the use of any moulding. This is completely handmade and a testament to the immense skills of the Jianshui potters.

After the clay wares have been made, they are shaped by hand using tools and then sent to the painters to illustrate the designs. BUT, what you see on the teaware is not paint, instead, it is coloured clay called a slip inlay. The engravers carve out the painted illustrations and fill with the slip inlay of various colours to create the pattern. This slip inlay process is long and laborious but the result is a smooth finish with a natural appearance and will not fade like paint.

The clay wares are fired in kilns for up to 20 hours at around 1000 degrees Celsius and are then hand sanded to this black colour. We then commissioned the teaware to be half polished to give a tactile satin feel without being over glossy. Our aim in these pots is to show off the natural beauty of this clay and the Jianshui traditional techniques with a fresh and modern design.

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