Yixing Zisha

A zisha pot keeps a little of every session. The unglazed clay breathes and seasons with use, so the more gongfu rounds you pour through it, the more it becomes yours. They’re small on purpose: made for gongfu, not for café pots.

Ours come from trips to individual ceramics artist studios in Dingshu town, Yixing (宜兴), in Jiangsu: handmade pots from people we meet, not factory-line ware. Zisha (紫砂) means “purple sand”, which is why you’ll often hear it called purple clay, though the local clays go well beyond purple. You’ll find zhuni (朱泥), zini and laozini (紫泥), duanni and laoduanni (段泥), hongni, lü ni (绿泥), dicaoqing, jiangpo, and the blends the studios mix themselves.

Some pots are full-handmade, built by hand from start to finish. Others are half-handmade, where trained hands work with a mould, which is still real studio work and nothing like slip-cast factory ware. A few are wood-fired, a note on how they met the kiln rather than where they came from.

Most of us end up with one pot we reach for every morning, and we hope one of these becomes yours.