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How has tea ware evolved?
Tea ware is often referred to as the father of tea, for it carries the essence of a cup of tea. The word "China" itself also means porcelain, and the West came to know China through its porcelain. Early pottery, bronze wares, later porcelains, and teaware made from materials like purple clay and glass were all adapted to the social productivity levels and brewing methods of their times. The complete set of gold and silver tea ware unearthed from the Famen Temple’s underground palace from the Tang Dynasty is breathtaking (multiple types of tea ware can also be seen in the painting “Night Banquet in the Tang Palace”). During Emperor Huizong's reign, tea competitions included the use of tea ware as an essential element, and Jian bowls, necessary for the tea-whisking method, became popular. Three of the Jian bowls (also known as Tenmoku bowls) that were brought to Japan are now considered national treasures there. The five famous kilns that produced tea ware are also world-renowned. The evolution of tea ware is a vast topic, but at its core, it cannot be separated from three words: "ceramics, technology, culture." Today, we will explore the evolution of tea ware from two… -
Kazuo Purple Clay
Basic Introduction to Kazuo Purple Clay Purple clay and pottery in Kazuo County have a long history, dating back to the prehistoric Hongshan Culture period. A large number of pottery artifacts have been unearthed from the sacrificial site at Dongshan觜 and the Niuheliang site in Kazuo County, including cylinder jars, slanted mouth vessels, pots, dou (a type of vessel), covered jars, nude female figures, and clay goddesses. During the Hongshan Culture period, the pottery was mainly composed of sand-mixed gray pottery and mud-quality red pottery, with the latter accounting for a larger proportion than the former. Product Features Kazuo purple clay products are high-temperature pottery made from purple clay ore through multiple processes. The ore appears in various colors such as purplish-red, dark purple, vermilion, etc. It has a fine and hard texture with a closely packed granular structure. It is fired at a high temperature, with the vitrification temperature approaching that of porcelain, thus making it a high-temperature pottery. Due to the evenly distributed sandy particles in the raw material, the surface remains clear and smooth after firing, with a refined and elegant appearance. Because the purple clay ore comes in many colors, people make full use of the… -
Jianshui Purple Pottery
Introduction to Jianshui Purple Pottery Jianshui Purple Pottery is a traditional folk craft from Jianshui County, Yunnan Province, originating in the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties. It is made using five-colored clay (red, yellow, green, brown, white) found near Jianshui, undergoing processes such as calligraphy, engraving, filling, scraping, firing, and polishing. The pottery has a deep purple color with snow-white patterns, producing a sound like stone when tapped. Among them, those with deep black embedded with white are particularly prized. The variety of Jianshui Purple Pottery is extensive, including cooking utensils, tea sets, flower pots, and display items for desks. Most designs are simple yet elegant, unique in style. When used as steamers, they can cook chicken, pigeons, and other meats exceptionally fresh. Jianshui Purple Pottery uses the locally abundant red, yellow, purple, green, and white clays. The colors are typically red with white flowers or black with white flowers, or white with red, yellow, or blue flowers. Product Features Due to the unique process of unglazed polishing, various types of purple pottery have features such as acid and alkali resistance, breathability, moisture-proofing, and heat preservation. As a result, teapots do not alter the taste of tea, and tea… -
Ancient Jieshou painted pottery revives in modern time
Xing Hui (front), an engraver and painter of Jieshou painted pottery, demonstrates her techniques at the painted pottery museum in Tianying Township of Jieshou City in east China's Anhui Province, May 29, 2024. (Jieshou Integrated Media Center/Handout via tasteallchina ) The making of Jieshou painted pottery can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Tianying Township in Jieshou City of east China's Anhui Province was the main production site of Jieshou painted pottery in history. The technique of making Jieshou painted pottery was inscribed as a national-level intangible cultural heritage in 2006. To inherit and revive the technique, the local inheritors have innovated the shape and carving patterns to meet the demand of modern society. The cultural and creative products designed by these inheritors are also favored by consumers. Nowadays, Tianying Township not only remains as a production place of Jieshou painted pottery, but also accommodates a museum for displaying potteries and a base for inheriting and reviving intangible cultural heritage, which makes the township a popular destination for study tours. Instead of being a local-made handicraft, the Jieshou painted pottery is integrated into school courses, decorations in parks, and museum exhibits. The ancient Jieshou painted pottery is reviving… -
History of Ancient Chinese Ceramics and Porcelain
Ceramics symbolizes the beginning of the Neolithic Age. The Chinese pottery of the Neolithic Age, the firing of ceramic objects was the other great success of mankind after the discovery of fire. With the help of fire, clay objects and figures could be fired, a process that led to the production of porcelain, which, with different methods, gradually became the domain of almost all the peoples of the world. Since human beings began sedentary life and started to cultivate crops and raise livestock, they began to need ceramic utensils for cooking and serving food, as well as porcelain items for the storage of various contents. Chinese ceramics have about 8,000 years of history. Each period of antiquity left its own legacy of manufacturing techniques, thanks to which many excellent works were created. Chinese ceramics and porcelain are a symbol of a materialized culture, which combines arts with science and technology, while linking material and spiritual civilization. The history of Chinese porcelain developed gradually, starting from the gray period, through black and white, to the stage of filigree and colorful, then moving from simple to complex patterns, from rough to refined texture, from prosaic to exquisite. Terracotta Warriors One of the… -
Timeline of Ancient China: From Shang to Tang Dynasty
The Chinese culture forms a world apart from strong isolation. Only in prehistoric times, especially the Neolithic, can we point to any contact between such distant worlds. The pottery with painted spirals of the Chinese Yang-Chao culture, in the 3rd millennium, resembles that of Southern Russia and the Danube at the same time. It has been brought from the West, perhaps by the first Chinese, farmers and herdsmen arriving from the Turkestan districts, where they were in contact with Caucasians and Indo-Germans and with other Mughal groups, the Uralo-Altaic and Turkic. Early History of Chinese Culture People were already living in the large region we now call China long before the beginning of recorded history. About 9,000 years ago, the ancestors of today's Chinese created agricultural settlements near two mighty rivers, the Yellow River and the Yangtze. Near the northernmost Yellow River, the earliest agricultural settlements consisted of wooden houses plastered with mud and roofed with reeds. Farmers cultivated a plant called millet, as well as fished in the river and hunted. Further south, people built houses on stilts in the swampy land near the Chang Jiang or "Long River". They grew rice on the waterlogged land and archaeologists have…
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