Investigation of Yixing purple clay tea pot

2017-10-2

It was the second day of Mid-Autumn Festival and China National Day on October 2,2017. Although it’s a rainy day, Louis and I still decided to explored purple clay tea pot in Yixing. Under the guidance of Anita (our Marketing Counselor), we’ll visit 2 enterprises in Yixing.

 

The first enterprise is in the Dingshu Town, Yixing. It’s near the Yixing Railway Station. We went there by car at half nine o’clock and we arrived there after 1 hour. We saw a lot of clays as soon as we got out of the car. The owner of this enterprise introduced these clays warmly and let us appreciated many hand-made purple clay tea pot which are all made by his daughter (Ms. Qian for short.). She has already made tea pots for 4 years.

 (Figure 1 was a lot of clays in the yard, such as cinnabar and arenaceous clay.)

 (Figure 2 was the hand-made purple clay tea pots by Ms. Qian.)

 (Figure 3, Ms. Qian was making a tea pot.)

 

Studious Louis asked Ms. Qian lots of questions about clay, purple clay tea pot, the style of pot lids and production process.

 (Figure 4 was Louis took a hot discussion with Ms. Qian.)

 

Strictly speaking, it is a small family work shop. The tea pots they sold are all made by Ms. Qian and they didn’t sell other products. And if you want the tea pot be more beautiful, such as painting or carving some words on it you have to found other professional enterprises. At last, the tea pots need to be fired but they can’t complete this step because they don’t have the equipment and you need to find a factory which can fire the tea pots. The scope of operation is relatively narrow.

 

After visited the first enterprise, we moved to the second enterprise without a stop. Compared with the first one, the second one is more regularization than them. They can provide a range of services with professional equipment from grouting to pot drying to the final fired.

 (Figure 5 was the second enterprise. The workers were making tea pot in the grey house.)

 (Figure 6 was the model of grouting.)

 (Figure 7 was the tea pots prepared to be fired and the burning device.)

 (Figure 8 was the drying room. In the rainy day, tea pots can’t drain the water, they need to be dried by people. If the water has not been drained, it will cause cracking of the teapot.)

 (Figure 9, the worker was grouting spouts with the model.)

 

After visited the enterprise, the owner of it take us to his own studio. He sold the tea pots and the teacups all designed by he and his wife in this studio. From making pots to painting or carving words and to the final step fired the tea pots, the production process are completed by themselves.

 (Figure 10 was the working table of making tea pots.)

 (Figure 11 was the part of the tea pots which were made by the couples.)

(Figure 12 was the tea pot made by the owner’s wife.)

 (Figure 13 Louis and chat with the owner and his friends lively.)

 

We left at about 5 o’clock in the afternoon. I learned a lot about purple clay teapot today it’s a meaningful day.

 

Journalist / Translator: Sara