Xi Yuqin

I bought this elegant teapot from a shop in the late 1980s. I did not know who the potter was until I saw a picture showing her work in an old book on teapots. Her name was Xi Yuqin and the teapot she made was a pumpkin teapot. Later I found out that she was active in the 1970s where she learned the art of teapot making from a old renown potter,

An elegant teapot

Many years later, this design of teapot appeared in the market. I bought a few to keep as my stock. Yet a few years later, there was a slight modification to this design. The handle became thicker and no more in a curved shape. It was all straight through, at 90 degrees. It was made this way as the original design would cause the handle of the teapot to break during transportation. The new design was robust. I did not buy any of the teapot of this new design. Although it was robust, it wasn't elegant and looked rather awkward. The original teapot looked lively and perfect.

Pumpkin teapot

Xi Yuqin

Ding Yaping's hexagonal teapot

A beautiful hexagonal Yixing teapot. It was made by a renown potter by the name of Ding Yaping.

The Zisha clay is of excellent quality, so is the workmanship. Such teapot is made by joining clay, segment by segment to achieve a hexagonal shape. The biggest problem is firing to harden the clay. Distortion and warping genenally cause such teapot design to be rejected. It is often said that one square shape is worth 10 round shape due to high reject rate. This hexagonal shape is even more difficult to make.

 

Teapot by Ding Yaping

Seal of Ding Yaping

Chestnut teapot

Here is a teapot made by potter by the name of Master Zhang. He is a nephew of Jiang Rong, a great Yixing master who was famous in designing and making teapots that copied things of nature. She was considered as the best realist in Yixing who could imitate anything from insects to fruits in her designs of teapots. A great potter in Yixing.

This teapot was made by Zhang under the supervision of Jiang Rong, his aunt. The seal of the teapot read "made/supervised by Jiang Rong".  Jiang Rong herself had made several chestnut teapots. They are really lovely, just like real chestnuts, yet they can be used to brew a pot of good chinese tea.

Chesnut teapot

Zhang and Jiang Rong

Picture taken from a megazine

Teapots for kungfu tea

Add caption

In this region, people like to brew tea using very small teapots. These teapots are not costly and you don't waste tea leaves using them. It is also a tradition passed down from Hokkien. Hokkien people called it "kungfu" tea. Just like learning kungfu, one has to follow every step in the traditional way using a lot of tea utensils. From boiling water, selecting tea, warming the untensils, etc, etc, you may have to wait up to 15 minutes just to be served with a small cup of chinese tea. Then the process repeats again for the 2nd cup if you have the patient and time. Otherwise, get a big teapot and you can enjoy as much tea as you want in a short time. Then again, you may lose out on the fun of this rigorous procedure they call the art of tea drinking which in a way can slow down your heart beat and prolong  your life.

In those early years, i liked to roam around in down town area to look for a good buy. I once bumped into a shop in Bukit Merah selling teapots and tea ware. It was not common to find such shop in this area where tourists do not come. The locals are also not keen in tea drinking. So one would expect the business to be bad. True enough, i spotted some small teapots selling for $3.50 per piece (top photo). I got interested in them and asked the shop owner how many he had in the shop as i knew they were good quality old Yixing teapots. He told me about 130 plus. Then i told him i wanted all of them. He was surprised that i wanted all. I had to tell him that i needed them as i was selling "bak kut teh", a hawker dish that served spare ribs (pork ribs) soup and rice with chinese tea and a lot of teapots were needed. After hearing that he even give me a discount. I had a laugh as i did not want him to be suspicious and did not want to sell me all. Today these teapots are longer in the market they cost quite a bit.

Pork ribs soup - very delicious

This small teapot (photo below) is known as XiShi Hu, made in the 1980s in Yixing China. The design is simple yet elegant and very ideal for kungfu tea. Chinese Tea House imported quite a lot of them from the Yixing factory. As i knew the people in the company, i went to their ware house and bought 2 hundred pieces of these little black devils. I just like to buy in large quantities in case i wanted to set up my own shop when i retire. These teapots are again things of the past, a product of an era long forgotten by most.

China Yixing

Black xisih hu

Singapore Chinese Tea House

Chinese Tea House was a tea appreciation company established in the 1980s in Singapore. The name reminded people of the famous movie of 1980s entitled Tea House which was produced by China. The movie was about a series of events that happened in China through story telling that centred on tea drinking and its culture. It was a very good movie with good actors and a good story line. The owner of Chinese Tea House was quick to register the company with the authority using the same name of the movie TeaHouse.

The company was formed by a group of 20 people who were tea drinking enthusiats. They were all close friends who appreciated tea drinking and associated tea culture. Initially, the company was located in a unit in a shopping centre in down town area. It offered tea drinkers a wide selection of chinese tea and customers were charged on a per head basis. There was no restriction on time and customers could spend the whole morning appreciating Chinese tea using the tea ware provided by the company. Besides providing tea appreciation sessions to the public, the company also sold a variety of Chinese tea and tea ware, books and megazines and other sourvenirs. During the Singapore Book Fair that was organised yearly, the company also had a unit  in the exhibition hall where chinese tea, tea ware and tea culture were introduced to the public.

The company imported tea, tea ware and accessories from Taiwan and China. Business was good and the demand of tea and associted products was great. To cater for the need of this group of tea drinkers, the company started introducing a series of teapots bearing the seal of Chinese Tea House. These teapots were well received by the public. The sale of these teapots and tea ware during exhibitions organised during Book Fair and Moon Cake festivals enabled the company to survive through all these years.

Below is the picture of one of those teapots commissioned by the company and made by potters from Yixing bearing Chinese Tea House logo. These teapots were designed and made by the company owned by Xu Sihai, a reknown teapot collector from Shanghai who owned a museum that housed some of the best teapots of the woeld. These teapots were made by potters in his company but they were supervised by Sihai himself. The seal under the lid read made and supervised by Sihai.

Teapot of Chinese Tea House

Chinese Tea House

At the height of its business, Chinese Tea House used to operate from 3 outlets and one ware house. As competition got worse, revenue from tea business dwindled. With high rental and labour cost, the company eventually operated from a ware house in a flated factory. Business sustained for a few more years under forever increasing business costs.

Due to to harsh operating conditions and difficult business circumstances, Chinese Tea House eventually ceased operation in Singapore last year. These teapots become a part of its history. Luckily, i owned a part of this history.

P.S. Articles appeared in a megazine published by a Taiwanese company on Chinese Tea House.

An outlet of Chinese Tea House

Chinese Tea House outlet at Marina Square Shopping Centre

Kao XiangJun

Kao XiangJun, a renown potter from Yixing, was a student of Li Pifang.

Her teapots were so elegantly made that one can spent hours admiring them, let alone use them to brew tea. Teapots made by talented potter such as Kao XiangJun are not easy to get as they are very sought after by collectors.

For instance, the teapot below possesses such an elegance and fineness that no matter what angle you look at it, you will still like it. It is so perfectly made that you can enjoy its beauty for a long time. This is what got me attracted to collecting teapots in those early years. Looking at beautiful teapots, to me, is a good way to relax your body, refresh your soul and rejuvenate your mind.

I do have a teapot made by Kao XiangJun. It is a segmented shaped teapot made in the early days of her career in the Yixing Factory. The seal at the back of the teapot indicated her name. The hexagonal shaped teapot was the early product coming out ftom the factory. No mistake about its maker.

Kao XiangJun

Gong Chun Hu

Design of  World first teapot, Gong Chun pot

This is the design of the teapot first made by Gong Chun, a Ming dynasty potter who learned teapot making from a monk.

Gong Chun was a servant of a scholar. Hefollowed his master during his stay in a temple to prepare for state examination. One day, Gong Chun saw a monk in the temple used some clay to make a teapot. Hidden behind a tree, he observed the whole process of making the teapot. After the monk had left, he found some clay remaining at the scene. He then used the remaining clay and imitating the monk to make a teapot. While he was hiding behind the tree, he noticed the interesting marks on the tree trunk, this gave him an inspiration. So he made the teapot resembling those marks. This was then known as the Gong Chun Hu (teapot). As he was quite talented, the teapot he made was of good workmanship. His master, being a scholar, liked tea drinking and invited his friends to drink tea using the teapot made by Gong Chun. He also asked Gong Chun to make teapots for his friends. As a result, all the natives there heard about Gong Chun and would like to own teapots made by him.

Gong Chun became so famous that his teapots became sought after by scholars and wealthy businessmen. Unfortunately, none of his teapots were left behind. Some on display in museums were imitation Gong Chun Hu by earlier masters.

I bought this teapot many years ago but did not know where i put it. I only found it recently, hidden in some newspaper wrappings. Where else, in cornices below the ceiling of my apartment.

Taiwanese teapot

When clearing some teapots, i found this teapot made in Taiwan in a plastic bag stuffed below the ceiling in the cornices of the apartment. As i do have a lot of small tespots and there is no place to display them in my apartment, i usually wrapped them in newspsper and put them  in plastic bags and stuffed the bags in the cornices below the ceiling. The newspaper used for wrapping the pots showed the date Jan 2011, it must have been 7 years since these pots were out of my radar.

Taiwan may not have the zisha clay, but the locals also make teapots and tea ware. They also like to brew chinese tea using Yixing teapots. They grow their very own chinese tea, usually the Goddess of mercy or kaoshan cha (tea from high mountain).

I bought this teapot even though i knew it wasn't made in Yixing. I liked its design, an unu7sually tall lid made the pot looked funny. After this purchase, i saw quite a nmber of similar pots appeared in the market. They were made in Yixing. Some were even made by craftmasters from Yixing. Its unthinkable that potters from these two rivarly nations shared the same inspiration in teapot designs. Otherwise, some could have copied the design from others. There is no copy right law in teapot designs, they all copied and learned from great masters of the past. Even Gu Jingxhou admited that he copied and learned from masters like Shi Dabin and Shou Dahen.

Taiwanese teapot and its maker

Other than this find, i also found a small teapot (suipin hu) hidden in the newspaper wrappings. This one is unique as the potter's name is inscribed under the lid. It is not any ordinary potter. The name suggests that it is quite a renown potter in Yixing, Zhou Tingfang. I bought this pot for about 10 dollars during those early days. Again, why i got attracted by this pot was because i had heard of the name Tingfang.

. 

Tingfang, mostlike Zhou Tingfang

A new fake

A new fake, or is it

When i bought this teapot many years ago, a teapot 'expert' commented that it was a newly faked teapot. I did not argue with him as he was an expert (so said everybody) who had many years of experience collecting Yixing teapots. Any way, he was entitled to his  opinion.  I believed it was an old teapot. A few days later when i visited the shop, the owner told me there was a professor (he might have noticed the pot ealier but did not commit himself for the purchase) who liked to buy the pot from me if i was willing to let go.  However, I declined the  offer. I liked to keep what i bought and i beleved that it was a genuine old teapot. I also knew that it was a pratice in the Qing dynasty era where Yixing teapots were generally painted with enamel and then fired in the kiln. I held on to this belief.

Recently i watched a progran in the Chinese CCTV about a famous teapot collector in China. Half way in the program, the camera was going through his collection in the display cabinet. Then i noticed this teapot sitting nicely at one corner in the cabinet. This was a renown collector, i was very certain that he knew what he collected. This proved one thing, don't be influenced by the so-called 'expert'. Some of these experts could not even read or write Chinese characters correctly themselves.

Some genuine expert may not give you a true opinion as he may have ulterior motive. If he praises too much on the thing you show him, then it is not likely for him to acquire it from you at a low price. Antique buyers always have this practice. When they wanted to buy some antiques, they liked to find fault on them so they could start slashing the asking price. A best way to start the bargaining process. The seller, on thr other hand, would bring out the good points of his stuff to counter the buyer's negative action. To close the deal, both the buyer and seller would negotiate for a final a price both could agree. Sometime it is irony. If the buyer kept on finding faults on the antique, then why he should he still want to buy it.

Guang Yun Gong Bing

A lot of people have seen the usual Guang Yun Puerh tea. But this one bears the shop's own designed brand. I bought a couple of them in late 1990s and found that the quality was good. The new owners of the shop no longer imports puerh tea themselves.

Guang Yun Bing is so called because the tea was processed and packaged in Guang Dong even tough the raw tea was from Yunnan. The reason the tea was manufactured and packaged there to facilitate export purpose since trade went through the port in Guang Dong. These tea cakes were very raw when I bought them. It was undrinkable that time. However over the years, the tea has since got rid of its harshness and slowly develops its mallow taste and quality. Nowadays, not many young tea drinkers have seen this tea as it is no more around in shops for a long time.

Typical Guan Yun Gong Bing

Old Comrade Tea

This brand of Puerh tea was pioneered by a retired factory manager of the Meng Hai Tea Factory, it is called the old comrade tea.

After years of working in the tea factory and acquiring tremendous experience in tea making, he did not want to give up this career of tea making. So when he retired in late 1990s, he set up his own factory immediately to make puerh tea. His first batch of puerh tea rolled out from his factory. As the tea labels were not yet ready, the tea had no labels or logo of its own. The tea bricks were wrapped in blank brown paper with the words Old Comrade written on the paper. He also introduced some thing unique for his tea, a first of its kind, an innovation he had thought of. He put a rectangular thin piece of bamboo with his name printed on it with words like ex-manager of Meng Hai Tea Factory printed on top. This is unique a way to market his tea and a guarantee of authentic tea from his factory.

This tea is excellent, resembling the old puerh tea he ever made for Meng Hai Tea Factory in the 1980s. The tea was well received by the public, Subsequently he introduced other products like the round tea cakes, green puerh, etc.

Bamboo sticks with maker's credentials

A sought after tea from Old Comrade

Due to its popularity, others begin to fake his tea and use his labels to market their own products. So be aware, there are fake tea in the market.