Jian Shui, "Purify The Heart"

My Jian Shui teapot came today. One quick, gentle boil in a cooking pot to get rid of residue and we began to get acquainted. It was very intuitive and organic the way I played with this pot. This is not the way I have done things with the other Yixings I have bought, I am much more relaxed with this one. Like a parent who has already reared one child, I am not nearly as terrified about breakage or ruining it! The pot seems to love Oriental Beauty, none of my other Yixings did, and it wasn't until last week,(see post on 'Pairings') that I learned that a pot can choose a tea, as I discovered with my little yellow pot 90ml and Big Red Robe Tea.

The Jian Shui is a large pot at 180 ml and I filled it with my favorite Oriental Beauty, I didn't even measure the grams! I just loosely filled the pot after having warmed it up.The way the pot smelled, or rather did not smell after the 'boil and dry' told me somehow that OB would be OK in it, and not get ruined. And then over and over, pouring the water at 195f into the pot and then the tea into the pitcher, and then the pitcher over the pot as the pot sat in the broth. Every steep I sipped a small cup, and they were all good. This was a terrific surprise to me as my Yixing pots that I have 'seasoned' and worked with did not allow me such sipping pleasure as Jian Shui is doing right away. I don't know why this is. Perhaps one of the clay experts I know will educate me. (Perhaps this is a magic teapot.)

What else can I say about this my new companion? The clay feels much smoother than my other Yixing pots, and I appreciate the design which says in Chinese, "Purify The Heart"

Here is what I learned from Yunnan Sourcing...

"The history of Jianshui purple pottery, which is also known as Southern Yunnan red jade, goes back hundreds of years. During the Song dynasty it was celadon; during the Yuan it was blue and white ceramics; during the Ming it was coarse ceramics; during the Qing it was purple pottery. Today, it is considered to be among the four famous types of Chinese pottery and represents the traditional folk art of Yunnan's Jianshui county."

Jian Shui purple pottery takes advantage of rich and unique local deposits of red, yellow, purple, cyan, and white 5-color clay.

It applies multiple hand techniques including filled engraving, broken tablet style, and glazeless polish. No external or internal glaze is applied. Instead, meticulous polishing with local river rocks which are just a bit harder than the pottery giving the pottery its unique character and lovely finish. The pieces are described as having “body like iron, color like copper, reflection like a mirror, and sound like a chime.”  They possess their own antique character that sets them apart from other types of pottery and places them in the class of exceptional pottery.

The unique glazeless polish ensures the all types of Jianshui purple pottery are acid resistant, alkali corrosion resistant, breathable, moisture resistant, and insulated.

Another advantage of Jian Shui pottery is the use of Hong He county’s relatively un-tapped clays which when fired are more than twice as dense (and heavy) as Yixing clays.  These clays are also extremely pure and unadulterated by pollutants.  We can provided scanned copies of the original analysis reports of possible (but not present) contaminants upon request.

and here are a lot of photos!

Filled with Oriental Beauty

See? Magic!