~ suitable for our tea sessions for one to three persons.
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 Yi Yao 翟一耀 collaborated with Craftsman Yi Hu Bi 一壶笔 (Artistic Byname) as Craftsman Zhai crafts the pot while Craftsman Yi engraves. Here Craftsman Yi chose the Bamboo engraving on this ZiSha work on the left face, and the right face are the inscripted words,
"Zhi Zu Chang Le" meaning:
Understanding Contentment, Always Happiness.
Very simple words which we in the tea culture, often relish and be at one with.
Zu 足 (as in Zu Gou 足够), means Contentment
Zhu 竹, means Bamboo.
Therefore this is s good wise semantics on words:
The engraving of bamboo on one side, and these four Chinese characters on the other side with the meaning elucidated above, are very apt!
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 ~180ml to cater for our tea friends who want a small ZhuNi pot for Gung Fu tea steepings, and suitable for one to two persons.
