#tea thoughts

Who doesn’t know the brown Yixing teapots, considered the best in the world for brewing (…surprise!) tea?

If you’ve suddenly forgotten (though hardly likely — our humble heroes have been freely on sale in capital cities since about the last century), take a look.

Yixing (宜興/宜兴) is a city in China’s Jiangsu province, on the shores of Lake Tai in the Yangtze Delta. Unglazed ceramics have been made there since the Song dynasty (960–1279).

While we’re on the subject, let’s remember that Lake Tai is famous for its incomparable hole-riddled limestone rocks, extracted from underwater, where the currents turn the stones into art objects. Taihu shi (太湖石) stones were traditionally valued in China above other works of art.

We had the chance to visit the Hermitage exhibition “Yixing Ceramics in the Collections of St. Petersburg and Moscow” and, yet again, were amazed at how you can design a vessel for brewing the leaves of this medicinal and tonic drink.

What astonishes is the Suprematism and laconicism of some pieces from the flourishing Qing dynasty (18th century) — or, by contrast, suddenly over-decorated multi-tiered specimens with engraving, painting and rich symbolism.

News surfaces from time to time that the unique Yixing clay (宜興泥; Yixing ni) is running out.

Contrary to popular belief, Yixing clay can be greenish, turquoise, cinnabar red — and the brown (“purple”) is simply the most common.

The satiny smoothness of Yixing ware comes from the material’s high iron content.

Why is Yixing clay expensive?

This shale (clayey siltstone, whatever that means) lies deep underground in layered strata. Just try digging that out! So it is running out…

In Britain there is the legendary Brown Betty teapot, similar to Yixing ones in colour but in nothing else (more about Betty, perhaps, another time). And in the nation’s beloved “Sherlock”, a staff member of the British Museum looks after precisely Yixing teapots and faithfully comes to pour hot water into them, so that the clay breathes properly and is preserved.

what do you mean i cant outwardlty react when the guys in my ears are experiencing the horrors

i was grinning ear to ear uncontrollabley in a coffee shop while listening to the invictus COC