Qing Shi (Chime Stone) Teapot • 磬石 茶壺

Qing Shi (Chime Stone) Teapot • 磬石 茶壺
Qìng shí cháhú

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to haul out a seldom used stone pot for a post. It was one of the first Chinese pots I'd bought but it sat unused in the pack row of pots since just a few weeks after I'd bought it. Partially because I seldom drink puer at home compared to other teas and mostly because I've gone overboard in my Yixing collecting and this pot got left in the dust of the fancy zisha clays.

I grabbed it for a change of pace but I'm glad I did because it prompted a fellow tea blogger to request this post. And I'm glad he did because it got me to discover a little more about the pot.

I knew that the density and heat retaining property of the stone made it great for puer. Though I've never seen them use a stope pot at the tea shop, they praised how well it brews puer when I first bought it and again the other night when I asked about it again.

My main question was what kind of stone it is. I was guessing black soapstone or some sort of granite but we had a really difficult time finding a translation of the Korean word for it, 경석 (gyeong-seok). Finally, I was able to find the Chinese characters, 磬石, just as the battery on my phone died. They told me it was a stone used for traditional music but that was as far as we got. At home, I was able to look up 磬石 on my computer and found "qing shi", or "chime stone" in English. It was used to make the chimes of an ancient instrument called the bian qing 編磬, a type of hanging lithophone.

I like the idea of a teapot with a musical connection! It brings together another aspect of life's joy to tea time...

The pot itself I think is a Xishi style, but it also has a bit of an Aladdin's Lamp feel to it with it's pointy spout. It was made in 1990 and holds 120ml (without tea) which makes it perfect for two regular sized Chinese gongfu cups. The workmanship is a little rough, with several tool marks around it. I can appreciate the amount of work that went into it, though, especially with it's polished surface. The inside of the lid was chipped a little when I bought, but it fits snuggly and doesn't drip at all. There's no stamp on the bottom but, hey, can't expect too much! The pot is a bit heavy for its size, but well-balanced and comfortable to pour.

I'd grabbed this for about $35 (35,000 won) back in 2007 but the couple they have left are marked for $100 now. They also have a smaller hexagonal one with a dull finish that's very nice.