TRULY FULLY-HANDMADE AND DELICATELY MADE.
Skilful Craftsman Zhai Yi Yao 翟一耀 has officially joined up with Craftsman Wang Xing and us taking care of all the Zhu Ni Zi Sha Works from June 2024 onwards! He starts off with both his Xi Shi and Li XIng for us. Zhai Yi Yao and Wang Xing are former course mates for three years at the ZiSha school. He is one with us, working alongside his long time friend Craftsman Wang Xing.
Craftsman Zhai also conscientiously sculpted a 手推内球孔 Hand-Pushed Spherical Filter to increase the number of filter holes for a solid and fast pour of tea out, working with the largish diameter spout; and with better catching of tea leaves at the bottom fast while allowing tea to flow out from the upper holes.
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Note on our TRUE Fully-Handmade Zhu Ni pots from RealZiSha: NOT those thick-/irregular-thickness-walled ones which are actually fake "Fully-handmade ZhuNi pots" utilising the cheating new technology: "车一刀 Che Yi Dao": Such ZhuNi pots utilizing Che Yi Dao process, have been sprouting up in the market since early 2022. Che Yi Dao involves a swivelling-rotational cutter that goes around a roughly-finished ZhuNi pot to cut the outer surface into a perfect shape. This cutter obliviates the need of accomplished skill of a true Fully-Handmaking Craftsman. Obviously, Che Yi Dao also absolves the need of a skilled FHM Craftsman to 1)pound the slab into a careful thin-slab, 2)paddle-pat the slab into a uniform shape purely manually.
In the utilisation of Che Yi Dao cutter, the worker will just need to 1) roughly pound the slab into a slightly thicker slab. After that the worker rounds up this slab as part of the main body, and will just 2)need to ROUGHLY paddle-pat it into shape. After which he sets up the Che Yi Dao cutter to revolve and cut the body into a perfect shape.
Of course, rest assured here, and avoid the ubiquitous fake jigger-machined fake "Xiao Mei Yao Zhu Ni", "Zhao Zhuang Zhu Ni", "Zhu Ni Da Hong Pao", etc pots all around sold in a multitude of places, sites, platforms, apps.
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We truly admire Craftsman Zhai Yi Yao's guile to bring his skills all to us. Let us all help him along and adopt his works as well. Kind and diligent, we all love Craftsman Zhai. He thanks you dearest Friends for your kindest support of his Art!
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Li Xing 梨形 is one of the most lovely Austere shapes which XiaoMeiYao is made into! A highly limited run here as well as our recent Fang Gu, Xi Shi, Pan Hu, Ming Lu, Shui Ping and JingZhou ShiPiao models. We hope you friends have loved all of them!
Li Xing 梨形 exudes the Aura of Chinese Orientalism, 2)for a narrowing top ZiSha model, it has a wider opening than Si Ting for better ease of introducing tea leaves and washing after steeping, 3)has a sharp-ish spout for decisive cutting of flow, and 4)has a slightly raised lid that stores a column of air above the tea water level when the lid is closed, so that during the initial first moment of pour with that few degrees of tilt, tea water flows out decisively and easily right from the start.
Crafted at ~160-170ml to cater for our tea friends who want a small ZhuNi pot for Gung Fu tea steepings, and suitable for one to three persons.
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Explained, https://www.realzisha.com/blogs/news/actual-zisha-landscape-at-yixing , the Craftsman by selling his hard-worked ZiSha craft at $190-$240, $45-$65 goes to the cost of the craft, inclusive of the fees for the firing for the kiln operator (three times per pot), the packaging boxes, and between $32 to $52 for the clay (Zi Ni Di Cao Qing, Duan Ni and upwards) used per pot. Craftsman takes 3 days (fastest 2.5days) to craft a pot.
If he works 30 days a month without a single day of rest (no family time), he will craft 10-12 pots.
If he crafts for 25 days (five days of rest a month), his output will be 8-10 pots.
The success rate for Zi Ni (e.g. Di Cao Qing, Lao Zi Ni, Da Shui Tan etc) and Duan Ni (e.g. Jiang Po Ni, Qing Hui Duan, etc) is 70% on average. Some times the whole batch of 10 may fail. We have seen our Craftsmen suffer like this very often.
The success rate for Zhu Ni (e.g. Xiao Mei Yao Zhu Ni) pots is 60%, or 70% with most optimism and at the very, very best. Unfortunately.
All of us at RealZiSha of course, hope for one another, professional colleagues and all, that all the pots will survive firing at the kiln successfully.
[For ZiSha models/designs that are very challenging and more complicated to craft, the time taken to craft will be longer, and the failure rate will be higher as well. Zi Sha by its virtue, have the highest shrinkage rate of all ceramic clay. Zi Ni and Duan Ni thus have that 70% success rate, while Zhu Ni has even higher shrinkage rate and thus even lower success rate (the lowest of all ceramic clay.)]
Our Craftsmen are wholeheartedly committed to the cause of Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and their strictness with their craft and dedication earn our respect. We give a big Thank You all of these Craftsmen, for they are saving what is our common precious tea culture: Tea + Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and Craft. Your support is critical to their livelihood and the existence of this craft for all of the tea fraternity.
Thank you Friends!
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