The purple clay teapot originally is Chinese first hand-made clay handicrafts, and its raw materials' origin is in Yixing of Jiangsu Province. So it is also called Yixing purple clay teapot. The purple clay teapot is of function and ornamental.
Yixing clay Teapots has a variety of models
There are a variety of teapot models, and there is always a saying "not one kind square, and all kinds of round". The purple clay teapot can be traditionally embellished into geometric shapes, natural shape and tendon profile sharp. Geometric shape teapots, mainly are square, spherical, or cylindrical. Generally the circular one is relatively soft, with beautiful lines, curves, while the square device is very powerful.
The natural shape generally takes plants and animals as the prototype. Some of these works are directly made with the shape of a variety of items, such as pumpkin pot, persimmon flat pot and so on, and some pots are carved on the body, such as ivy pot, pot of primrose.
1. Unique adsorption
Teapot's good ventilation also created another unique quality, which is the strong adsorption. It will continue to absorb tea aroma when teapot is used, and after a long time, it will create a aroma. Therefore, the top purple clay teapot can make the same type to avoid flavor mixing, which affects its taste.
2. The more nourished, the more spiritual
For many appliances, the more you use, the older they are, but the more you use, the better the purple clay teapot is. The pot body will be more and more shiny, smooth, beautiful and mild after frequent cleaning.
3. Resist hot and cold temperature
Teapot is sandy and it transfers heat slow, so it has a good stability of hot and cold, even if burned directly on the stove, it will not be split.
Value of art collection of Yixing Teapots
The purple clay teapot is used to make tea and it is artware because of its sophisticated producing technology. Since ancient time, scholars have attached great importance to teapot collection. Some teapots, made by superb craft from the hands of masters, even lead to equivalence of "earth equal to gold". In recent years, the purple clayy teapot has become investment objectives.
How to open and use the Chinese Yixing teapot?
As a kind of tea set for appreciation and practical uses, purple clay teapot is the favorite thing for literature lovers in different historical stages in ancient China. Speaking of purple clay teapots, it originates from the Song dynasty and developed in the Ming dynasty, and peaked at the time ruled by Kang Xi and Qian Long in the Qing dynasty in terms of techniques and appreciation and collection. Also, the main characteristics of purple clay teapots are the common wealth of the descendants.
Due to the uniqueness of purple clay teapots, it looks even more dashing when applied to the daily uses. Yixing teapots are made by coarse sand which contains less grit. Using this kind of teapot will not cover up the scent of the tea. Truly, this kind of teapot can balance well between the color, aroma and the taste of tea. Technicians on porcelain and food have jointly conducted experiments in three months' time on the practical value of purple clay teapots. They have used TC-PIIG automatic color identification technique and chromatism detection technique. This experiment ranges from Yixing purple-clay teapots, Yixing cinnabar teapots, and white porcelain teapots and glass cups. They used these containers to brew green tea, brown tea and oolong tea and analyze the color, aroma, taste, residue of the tea, tea polyphenols, caffeine, reduced sugar, theanine, tea cream, etc. The result is, the former two kinds of purple clay teapots in better than other porcelain teapots and glass cup. Having identified the quantity of Vitamin C and microbes by quantitative analysis, purple-clay teapots are the perfect one of all, which is hard for tea to go bad.
First, the pot may be full of strange odors, so you have to throw away the residue out of it and pour hot water to wash the inner side of the pot. Then, pour out the hot water and dip the pot in the cool water. As a result of it, this odor is gone.
Second, the texture of the pot in hard to conduct heat and perfect for maintaining the temperature. When you are holding it with hot water inside, you will not feel burning in hand, also, it can warm you hand and that is good for your body.
Third, there are two blowholes in the purple-clay teapot, so it can adjust its temperature when meeting with cold or hot water. In cold weather, hot water will not split the whole purple-clay teapot. You do not need to worry any more when stewing or boiling things within it.
Fourth, it can be used for quite a long time. Especially, when you touch it very often, the teapot will become even more shining and brighter than ever before.
Fifth, the inner side of the teapot can absorb the fluid of tea. Although you never clean the stain of tea on it, it never smells odd and even release the aroma of tea. The stain of tea on the inner side of the teapot has been proved to have the ability to kill bacteria by biological experiments, because it contains flavomycin.
Sixth, there are tall and short purple-clay teapots. According to the rules of brewing tea, tall pots are suitable for making brown tea, because brown tea is fermented. So brown tea cannot be contained in stuffy containers, also, it is more tasteful in tall pots. While short teapots is for green tea, because green tea is not fermented and not suitable for stuffy pot, so as to maintain the green color, wonderful taste of green tea.
Seventh, when using, maintaining the pot, the surface cannot be painted with oil. In addition, you cannot suck the spout of the teapot so as to maintain the natural brightness of its surface and maintain the original taste of the tea.
How to nourishing your Yixing clay teapot?
Teapot is spiritual. The more nourishing, the more valuable and the more, flavored. If an original teapot is improperly used or nourished, its value will be greatly reduced.
Nourishing
1. After a new pot is open, it is used to make tea, every day, and the teapot can be washed with waste tea. About six months later, the teapot will be well kept.
2. When people dump tea with teapot, they should make the index finger touch the lid to avoid the lid falling or being damaged.
3. When passing and seeing the teapot between persons, ，try to avoid to deliver to the second person with hand. The ideal way is, after one's own appreciation, put the pot on the table, so that the second person could take pot on the table by himself. The hand-delivering way may broke teapot easily.
4. After using, teapot must be cleaned. Wash with water and keep it by pot kept pen.
5. One pot could brew a certain kind of tea. If allowed, it can make one kind tea only in one pot for better maintenance.
Cleaning and maintenance
1. Wash teapot with clean water. Do not use detergent and other chemicals for cleaning the teapot.
2. Do not use sandpaper or washing cloth to wipe the pot body. A very special tea towel should be used to wipe valuable pot body.
3. Use tea soup to make the teapot smooth and translucent.
4. Regardless of the new pot or old pot, the temperature of teapot body is a little high after the tea is made by boiled water, at this moment, use wet tea towel or a clean damp cloth to wipe the pot body.
5. Brush the teapot properly and do not use excessive force.
How to selecting and buying the authentic Yixing teapot
The purple clay teapot can be called the best teapot and it is favored by almost tea lovers. Teapot's quality varies. A good purple clay teapot is a good art and craft and it costs much. It's definitely that purple clay teapot selection is not easy for many people.
The following are tips for purchase.
Watching its material
The main materials of the purple clay teapot are purple, yellow, grey, and green mud. The purple clay teapot made of such five kinds are of excellent quality, of which the best one is purple mud, which is also called purple clay teapot. When buying a teapot, you had better not buy those with bright colors because there may be some certain chemical elements inside.
Watching small parts
Good purple clay teapots are upright, not distorted, and inclined. The spout and pot handle should be in a straight line. Note the following details: the lid is in close contact with the body and it can be raised up by hand without falling; whether the lid holder is round, annular or bamboo-shaped, it should be convenient for holding; whether the spout is "curved mouth? "two scimitar" or "straight mouth," "three scimitars", it serves for the water flowing fluently and it sprays out. When the water is stopped, water will not flow on the pot body from the pot spout. And it is comfortable to hold the handle.
Feeling
Teapot feels like the red bean paste, ，thin and not greasy and very comfortable. If it feels like the texture of sand, it was defective.
Testing water
Testing water can see the spout conditions as mentioned. When tea is poured, the water column should be smooth and arc-shaped. Water will not drip leak tick. On the other hand, the leakage of the pot can be tested by testing water. First, make the pot filled with water, block ventilation holes on the lid, and pour the spout down. If the water is not flowing out, then the pot cover is airtight and it is a good pot.
When buying teapot, as long as we could achieve both practicality and appreciation of nature, there is no need only to pursue famous teapots.
Anecdotes of purple clay teapot
According to researches, the manufacture of teapot in China is from Ming Dynasty. After the first teapot was made, masters and professionals have stepped on the stage, with a variety of purple clay teapots produced by them in the world one by one, and anecdotes about teapot legend also spread from generation to generation, and people like to talk them all the time.
Father of purple clay Teapot
In the reign of Emperor Zhengde and Emperor Jiajing of Ming Dynasty, a man named Gong Chun is a nunnery for Wu Yishan in Yixing and accompanied Wu Yishan to the temple to study. At that time, there is a monk in Golden Sand Temple, and he is very fond of making teapot. Gong Chun often helped him at leisure time, and gradually became interested in making teapot. It was said that in the temple there was a tall ginkgo tree, deep-rooted with multi-tree galls. Gong Chun made a teapot according to the ginkgo gall. It is so lovely that even the monk in the Golden Sand Temple is amazed at it. After that, Gong Chun is living on making teapots, and his work is gracefully natural, varied, and especially loved by the literati. Because Gong Chun learns to make teapot from a monk, so the teapot manufacture should be earlier. According to the chapter Founding of Yangxian Teapot, the pioneer of the Ming Dynasty Teapot is a temple monk from Yixing Golden Sand Temple. But it's difficult to determine whether the monk is the master of Gong chun, or whether this monk has been embellished before the production. It can be concluded that Gong Chun is the first-known person to make teapot, so his tree gall pot is considered to be the world's first teapot, and he has been regarded as father of teapot.
After Gong Chun, there are great masters such as Shi Dabin, Hui Mengchen, Chen Mingyuan, Jiang Rong, Han Meilin, Wang Zhigang and many other famous people. They create a myth of teapot which is thick, ethereal and stable, and charming.
An interesting story
Once upon a time, there is a rich man fond of tea. He always meet friends with tea, no matter rich or poor. As long as someone comes to ask for tea to drink, he would treat them with hospitality.
One day, a ragged beggar came to the rich man's. He was not begging, just asking for tea. The servants rushed into the room and just gave a cup of tea to him. Looking at the tea, the beggar said: "The tea is not good." Then the servant served a bowl of good tea, and the beggar sniffed, said: "Tea is good tea, but water is not good." This servant returned to fetch spring water to make tea. The beggar tasted and said: "Tea is good tea, and water is good water, but the firewood is not good. Good tea is cooked by the wood on the north side of the mountain because wood from the north side is hard enough." As the beggar was so proficient in sado, the servant quickly got good wood to cook, and told the rich man. After the rich man met the beggar, they drank tea together, and the beggar said: "Tea is good, water is good, wood is good, and fire is good, but the pot is not good." The rich man said: "This is my best pot." The beggar smiled, shook his head, and carefully took a pot from the arms. So they remade the tea. Although the tea was the same, its taste was really unusual. Then the rich man immediately got up and said: "I would like to buy this pot, and please give a price." Beggars heard this, quickly packed up the teapot and wanted to go away. Rich man stopped him and said: "I'd like to give you a half possession for this pot."
Beggars did not say anything and insisted to go. The rich man became anxious, said: "I give you all the possessions. Would you like to exchange?" After the beggar heard, he just smiled and said: "If I could give up this pot, I would not beg to live any longer."
From this story, we could know the importance of the teapot and how the purple clay teapot is loved by people.