When I started work in the early 80s, I had the first encounter with this teapot. It was during a small group meeting that I noticed a colleague walking into the meeting with his hand holding a teapot. It appeared strange at that time as someone would actually take the trouble to bring along his own tea to attend meeting (tea was usually ordered to be consumed during meeting). When I took a closer look, it was a top handle teapot that had a design like a portion of a bamboo. I was new to teapot at that time but I liked it straight away. My colleague had this habit of bringing his own pot of Chinese tea whenever he went for a meeting. He didn't like tea or coffee which was the norm at any meeting place. After the meeting, I began to take an interest in teapot. I could also imagine myself holding the teapot and walking into a meeting. It was like kind of cool.
Ever since my first encounter with this pot, I had been hunting high and low for a similar pot in many antique shops in Singapore for a couple of months. Eventually I found one shop where there were 3 such pots on display. With some persuasion, I managed to buy all three pots from the shops. Subsequently I was able to collect another 7 pots from other shops as well. I sold one to a collector in the 90s and I am now left with 9. Nowadays, I seldom use them to serve tea as I am worried that they may be damaged due to my carelessness.
These teapots were made with fine zisha and the feel on the pots was good. Being a top handle pot, you can carry it anywhere you like with one hand, just like my colleague in older days.
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