Zhuni Ba'le (Guava) Teapot

After narrowing down Chen Tu Gen's pots to a select few, the one that initially caught my eye still stood out, a Ba Le (芭樂/Guava) shaped pot, similar to the Pear-shaped pots I love so much but with a flat lid, making it slightly more balanced and easier to handle. 

On closer inspection, the craftsmanship of the pot is flawless, down to the tiniest details. The thin spout is elegantly curved with a pointed edge. The inner edge of the handle is worked flat, adding to the pots aesthetic. finally, the top knob, or bead, as I prefer to call it, is perfectly formed, slightly tapered at the top where the air spout is meticulously clean. Meticulous may be the best over-all adjective for this pot, every single grain of its zhuni clay, meticulously crafted to the point of obsession.

The zhuni clay also makes a delicate, wrinkled, skin-like texture that will continue to develop with use. 

Directing focus to the inside of the pot, the first thing I observed is that the lid was perfectly snug and the rim of the pot was as smooth as glass. Where in even some of my best pots the inner seems along the bottom of the pot and inside the lid are a bit sloppy, both the inner seam of the pot and the lid have cleaned with a groove. 

Performance wise, the zhuni clay makes it a great pot for any type of tea but really great for puer. That said, I've been using this one for Tie Guan Yin. The erect spout makes a beautiful, fountain-like arc while pouring. The thinness makes for a bit of a slow pour, but that usually doesn't concern me. What did concern me at first is that the pot is so thin it made me apprehensive until my fingers adjusted. The top bead is also so tiny that my clumsy fingers had difficult grasping it. I've taken to lifting it on and off with the tongs, which is a good practice, anyway. The high-quality, highly porous zhuni clay and thin walls also let the clay develop a patina very quickly. After just a few uses, it had already developed a nice sheen and in only five months it's already showing a small buildup inside.

For anyone in search of a nice, authentic zhuni pot, you won't find anything better on the market for a comparable price than one of Chen Tu Gen's.

Link to Kkik Da Geo:
http://kkikdageo.com./bbs/view.php?uid=53&startPage=1&boardid=in_chinaboard2
No English, but if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

陳兎根 • Chen Tu Gen

Last year, Chen Tu Gen, a Chinese man from Yixing, came into Kkik Da Geo with a collection of hand-made pots, hoping to do business in Korea. He said that all the shops he'd visited weren't interested (they most likely didn't trust him) and Kkik Da Geo was the last place he was trying before going back to China.

When he unveiled his pots, their jaws dropped at what they beheld; a perfect blend of technique, artistry, and precious, rare clay. A combination rarely seen these days. As far as teashops in Seoul go, few owners have Mr Ahn's eye for clay and he immediately recognized that the pots were authentic zisha and zhuni clays. Needless to say, they immediately agreed to sell his pots, considering their meeting him to be "in-yeon", a sort of karmic-affintity. 

Not long after, I visited their website and my own eyes nearly popped out when I saw the new collection of pots they had. The one that amazed me the most was a peach-branch pot with a heart-shaped spout. I'd never seen anything like it. Unfortunately, by the time I made it into Seoul, it had been sold, but I was pleased to set aside an elegantly crafted zhuni guava pot. The stone used to make zhuni clay has been extinct since the early 1970's, but his supply of clay has been in his family for 200 years and he inherited it from his grandfather.

As fate would have it, just a few days after I bought the guava pot, I dropped by the shop just as a parcel arrived from Chen Tu Gen. Mr Ahn carefully unwrapped a zisha pear-branch pot for me to admire and said it was mine if I wanted it. At first I said no, but called them the next day to change my mind. They let me pay it off as I could and after four long months of admiring it through the glass display case, I was able to bring it home to join the rest of my indulgences. 

What amazed me the most about these pots, aside from their perfect form, is how fast they sold. In even a week between visits I'd notice more than a dozen would be gone. There were several of them that were accented with gold leaf for more than twice the price of a regular one and within two weeks they were all gone. 

Not that I plan on selling them anytime soon, but if there's one justification to owning these pots, beyond desire/greed, they are actually good investments, as their value is guaranteed to grow. Really, though, they just make drinking tea that much more enjoyable.

Here are a couple of photos I took at Kkik Da Geo with my phone (not the greatest quality). I will do a proper, in-depth review of each one when time permits.

> Chen Tu Gen's Ba Le (Guava) pot <

Pear Shaped Zhuni • 梨形茶壶

Over the years, I've developed a fondness for fruit-shaped Yixing teapots. Pear-shaped ones, especially, seem to catch my eye, with with their elegantly curved spouts and smooth contours.

There are a few at the teashop that I can't help but stare at every time I go in (which is often...) but they are all antique and the one my eye likes the best is $2000. I asked if there were any that were more affordable but was told not many artists still make the curved spouts anymore, so they're usually antique.

Eventually, I found one that didn't quite match the perfectly crafted antique ones but was still very nice for less than a tenth the price. The rough texture of the surface made me think it could be zhuni, and I was right. The odd thing about the pot is that it has no stamp but a poem carved into the bottom, "Creek under the moonlight," with the name of an old master who lived three-hundred years ago. The thing is, the pot is less than ten years old. So, it's sort of like having an eight year-old Stradivarius. But if it's even remotely comparable to a Stradivarius, then I'm not really concerned who made it!

It's 100ml, perfect for two gongfu cups, or one large cup, if I'm alone. The walls are slightly thick, making it nice for dark oolong. It's great for puer, too, but the opening is so narrow the tea has to be broken up quite small. The lid fits very nicely, allowing a very clean pour and the edges of the rim and lid are smooth and sharp. The top bead is perfectly shaped with nice proportion to the pot, he lower portion of the lid, that slides into the pot, is angled slightly inward, showing the artist's care for detail.