On the western banks of Lake Tai in the city of YiXing the most famous teapot in the world has its storied beginnings. Buried between the scholar’s stones and greenery of Jiangsu’s Great Lake, YiXing’s purple clay offered Chinese potters of the 15th century a chance to create ceramics of breathtaking colors and styles.
Legend has it that in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) a barefooted monk from a nearby temple visited YiXing and discovered brightly colored clay along the riverbanks. Later, a potter, Gong Chun, who had studied with YiXing monks, hit upon the idea of crafting a pot, rather than a bowl, for steeping tea. Gong Chun’s teapot, thought perhaps to be the first purple clay teapot in history, was made to resemble a burl of wood with a lid, handle and short spout.
The teapot became so popular among the scholar class of Imperial China that its fame spread throughout the country. By the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) master craftsmen created pots with poems carved on the sides, and others modeled after tree roots, leaves and geometric forms. So popular was this new style of drinking tea, the emperor himself agreed to export pots to Europe. For the first time Chinese tea – and the purple clay teapots that accompanied it – was sent to Europe, establishing taste for tea-drinking that has lasted to the present day.
Today, as then, purple clay teapots are prized for their ability to retain the flavor and color of teas brewed inside. This unique phenomenon, a result of the pots’ porosity and lack of glaze, allows each teapot to develop its own character, taste and color over decades if not centuries of brewing. So important was the personality of each individual teapot, only one type of tea is traditionally brewed per pot.
Mining of purple clay has since been banned by the Chinese government, and although YiXing teapots range in value depending on age, style, clay and craftsman, the rarest have been deemed priceless National Treasures.
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