The care of Zisha teapots is a profound art that requires patience and meticulous care. In daily use, we must not only avoid contact with oily substances but also frequently caress and handle them with clean hands, allowing the teapot body to gradually display its warm luster through careful handling.
Once a Zisha teapot is contaminated with oil, it easily develops a “thief’s light” and develops spotted patterns. Both the interior and exterior of the teapot must not be contaminated with oil. Every tea activity requires clean hands for tea preparation, firstly to prevent tea from being polluted by foreign odors, and secondly to ensure the teapot receives proper care. During the tea drinking process, caressing and handling the clay teapot with clean hands is very necessary. The body fluids secreted by human hands have beneficial effects on purple clay, and even bamboo, wood, horn, and jade materials - this has been confirmed by many enthusiasts, though it cannot yet be verified through instrument analysis. Generally speaking, in the first year of initial care and use of a new teapot, the appearance and color will show considerable improvement, the clay color will become more subdued than the original, and the lid and spout will become more tightly fitted and smoothly turned. From the second to fifth year, tea stains will make the inner and outer colors of the teapot walls consistent. The teapot will basically shed its dry atmosphere, gradually display elegant luster, and show obvious tea enhancement. After five years, the sensory changes of the teapot become extremely slow, making it difficult to achieve major breakthroughs in ten or twenty years. However, the teapot’s luster becomes more elegant like jade, with warm luster, and when placed as a desk ornament, it increasingly shows its serene beauty.
The beauty displayed by a teapot through care is originally a byproduct of leisure tea drinking or tea-based self-cultivation activities. If one is too eager for quick success and rushes for results, not drinking tea but focusing solely on obtaining the teapot’s “patina” and “playing with things to the detriment of one’s will,” this goes against the meaning of teapot care. Naturally drinking tea and caring for teapots is the way tea people and teapot friends actively live and engage in worldly affairs while practicing the way of tea and the way of teapots.
Different tea types have greatly varying tea natures, therefore the brewing methods, water temperature, brewing time, tea utensil selection, and drinking methods for various teas also differ. The Ming Dynasty scholar Xu Cishu said in “Tea Shu”: “Tea thrives in water, water borrows from vessels, soup is completed by fire, the four are interdependent, lacking one renders it useless.” This explains that brewing a good pot of tea must achieve good water, sufficient fire, and beautiful vessels. Modern tea art emphasizes the harmonious unity of “tea, water, vessels, fire, environment, and technique.” Using spring water and Zisha teapots to brew a good pot of tea has become the exemplar of the saying “water is the mother of tea, teapots are the father of tea.”
The raw material used for Zisha teapots is purple clay ore from Dingshu, Yixing. It is a type of ore, and the purple clay ore excavated from the mine source is commonly called raw clay. It must undergo weathering, sun-drying to remove impurities, ingredient preparation, crushing, aging, clay refining and other series of processing changes. After passing quality inspection, it must be stored for at least six months before it can be used as raw material for teapot making. Purple clay can mainly be divided into three major categories: purple clay, original mountain green clay, and red clay. Each major category of clay material has fine subcategories, and various clay materials can be matched and mixed in different proportions. Through refinement into various clay colors and qualities of teapot-making raw materials. Through the artistic creation of teapot makers, various teapot art works are made. The influence of teapots made from different purple clays on tea soup is rarely discussed by ancient people, but modern tea people indeed have certain summaries based on experience.
Secret Tips for Zisha Teapot Collection and Care
Inheriting tea culture, assisting tea enterprises. Zisha teapots, with their artistry, practicality, and appreciation potential, are deeply favored by collectors. However, many beginners only know how to appreciate but don’t understand teapot care. When a teapot is fired, due to heavy fire energy in the clay body and loose micropore structure in the Zisha teapot, it is brittle and easily affected by thermal expansion and contraction. Only through conditioning can its weaknesses be changed and it becomes a truly good teapot. So, how should one collect and care for Zisha teapots?