Chinese Yixing Zisha Clay Handmade Exquisite Teapot （三足水平壶 底款：柏原（清））

Precious heavy ware inlaid with silver wire, purple clay pot
Tea tasting: three legged horizontal pot
Deposit: Boyuan (Qing Dynasty)
Material: purple sand
Capacity: 400cc
Water outlet: single hole
Size: 17/11cm

Purple clay pot, a handmade pottery handicraft unique to the Han nationality of China, is also manufactured in large quantities by machines. The raw material is purple clay, which originated in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, also known as Yixing purple clay pot. Purple clay pots are "antiques" with collection value, and the auction market is on the rise. It is often difficult to find a pot of famous masters' works. It is the so-called "Yixing purple clay is the best choice for jewelry in the world". [4]
Yixing Purple Clay Pot is the most famous one. Yixing Purple Clay Pot can keep the color, aroma and taste of tea for a long time without taking away the true fragrance of tea or the flavor of cooked tea. The purple clay tea set is also favored by people because of its simple and unique shape, excellent temperament, and the ancient jade color after tea bubbles and hand rubbing. Purple mud is indeed the unique raw material of Yixing. It has the chemical composition and mineral composition necessary for pottery making. Microscopic observation shows that the main minerals of purple mud are quartz, clay, mica and hematite. The reasonable chemical, mineral and particle composition makes the purple mud have good processing properties such as good plasticity, high green body strength and small drying shrinkage. The fineness of purple mud crushing should pass the 60 mesh sieve.
It takes much work to make too coarse mud; When the mud is too fine, it will stick to the hands, and the surface of the green body will cause wrinkles, drying, burning shrinkage and increase. During the molding process, the key work of finishing is used to polish the whole body of the shape to form a dense skin layer. Due to the existence of the skin layer, the range of product firing temperature is expanded. Whether at the upper or lower limit of the normal firing temperature, the skin layer is easy to sinter, while the inner wall of the pot body can still form pores. Therefore, the finishing process during forming has the function of organically linking the mud, forming and firing together, giving purple clay a smooth surface, a luster without glaze, and a certain porosity without leakage. [5]
raw material
The raw material of the purple clay pot is clay. The clay of the purple clay pot is divided into three types: purple clay, green clay and red clay. The mud that can be used to make purple clay pots is usually deep under the rock layer, and the thickness of the mud layer varies from tens of centimeters to one meter. According to the analysis of lithofacies by Shanghai Silicate Research Institute, the purple sand yellow mud belongs to the type of kaolin quartz mica, with high iron content, the highest iron content is 8.83%. The purple clay pot is fired under high oxygen and high temperature conditions. It is generally contacted by flat flame, and the firing temperature is between 1100-1200 ℃. The water absorption of the finished purple clay pot is more than 2%. The mud materials of purple clay pot are purple mud, green mud and red mud, commonly known as "rich soil". Because it is produced in Yixing, Jiangsu, it is called Yixing purple sand.
practicability
Purple clay pot is used to make tea. In the past, there had been a conclusion about the performance of purple clay pot, which was "color, fragrance and all". In addition, the scientific organization also made a detailed test on the sand pot's "staying overnight in summer months is not bad". The purple clay pot and ceramics confirmed that the sand pot is much better than ceramics. This conclusion is based on the uniqueness of purple clay raw materials. The purple clay pot is highly practical because it has a relatively high porosity, which makes it have the advantage of good air permeability. According to the record on page 394 of the History of the Ceramic Capital of China, the purple clay "is characterized by high iron content, and there are a lot of agglomerates in the microstructure of the purple clay ware". There are two types of pores, one is the pores inside the agglomerate, and the other is the group of pores wrapped around the agglomerate, and most of them are open pores. The good permeability of the purple clay ware may be related to this special microstructure. According to the physical and chemical properties of various clays measured by Yixing Ceramics Company, it is found that the porosity of purple clay is more than 10%. It also shows that good air permeability is, of course, the main reason for "tea color, smell and smell are all accumulated" and "summer and moon nights are not sour". The plasticity and binding ability of purple clay are good, which is the reason why it is beneficial to craft decoration. Moreover, the baking temperature range of purple clay is also wide, ranging from 1190 ℃ to 1270 ℃, which is another reason why purple clay products do not leak and age, and the more they are used, the more shiny they become. All of the above shows that the purple clay of silty fine sandstone is the best clay for "suitable pottery and pot", and also the unique treasure of Yixing, the pottery capital.
The purple clay tea set made of purple clay is recognized as the best tea set and the best tea set in the world.