How to distinguish between true and false purple sand

How to distinguish genuine teapot from fake teapot?

One is to look. Look at the surface first. Because it is clay, it is not glazed, so the surface of the new teapot can't be bright, but rough. In order to sell well, fake pottery pots are generally waxed and polished. Secondly, purple mud contains trace elements such as timely and mica, which will form crystals when fired at high temperature, so many subtle silver highlights can be seen in the whole pot body under the light. Third, the color of the real teapot is similar inside and outside, and there is not much difference.

The second is to try with boiling water. Pour the freshly boiled water into the pot, pour it along the pot body, and cover the pot. You will see that the water is not flowing downwards, but is slowly sucked dry; Wet the lid slowly, and then suck it dry slowly. This shows that the teapot has double holes and good air permeability. The third is to leave the brewed tea in the teapot, and the tea will not turn sour for two or three days.

In addition, it is unscientific to distinguish the sound when knocking on the pot body with the lid. Because of different shapes and materials, the sound will be different. Moreover, adding glass water to fake mud can also knock out sounds similar to real mud. Tapping and listening to sounds have a greater role in identifying whether there are hidden cracks in the pot body.

There are many kinds of teapots, including pottery, porcelain, gold, iron, bronze and tin? Here only focuses on Yixing teapot. Among the numerous teapot, how to choose a good teapot is not only a difficult problem for the novice teapot, but also a serious topic for the veteran teapot who has been wandering for many years. Zisha teapot is not only a functional and practical product, but also a work of art that can be played and appreciated. Therefore, a good teapot should be highly affirmed from three aspects: practicality, craftsmanship and appreciation. Ceramic lovers may wish to consider these three key points when purchasing teapot. 1. Actual

There is no doubt that the teapot's vocation is to make tea. In other words, the basic principle of "practicality" cannot be violated when choosing a teapot. Therefore, when purchasing, you may wish to consider the actual function first. Excellent practical function refers to the appropriate volume and capacity, convenient handle, smooth water outlet from the spout, and convenient tea tasting and making. Therefore, the purchase of teapot should be based on personal tea drinking habits, considering the capacity of teapot, the smoothness of spout, the comfort of handle and so on. A practical intimate pot should at least have the following points:

1). The capacity should be suitable for your own use. Teapots have many different capacities. The largest can hold several liters of water, and the smallest can only hold one cup. Similarly, some people have a wide range of friends. They make three pounds of tea a week every day at the wedding. At this time, if you choose a small pot of Zhu mud to make tea, it will be enough for him to sweat. On the other hand, if three or two friends have a good time drinking tea, choose a big man's square pot with water rising recently. Isn't that forcing everyone to have a good drink? If so, there is no guarantee that in three months, your friends will change from three to two, and two will become orphans. Finally, there will only be "until, raise my cup, I ask the moon to bring my shadow to me, so that we can become three people"!

2) The flap design is reasonable, and the tea leaves are convenient to enter and exit. Bird Dragon Tea, which people in China like to drink, is in a dry and compact state before brewing, so it is not too difficult to put it in a pot with Chaze. But after several rounds of hot water brewing, the leaves stretch and expand one by one, which will fill the whole pot tightly (especially when there is too much tea). At this time, if the spout is too small or the design is wrong, it will take some time to take out the tea residue. If you neglect maintenance for a period of time and don't clean it, it is easy to form tea scale on the inner wall of the pot, or even mildew, which is harmful to your health.

3). The center of gravity should be stable and the end treatment should be smooth. Some teapots are very heavy when they are held, either the handle is not properly designed and ergonomic, or the teapot wall is too thick (too much soil is used). Beginners buying a pot might as well fill it with three quarters of water, lift it with one hand and copy the posture of pouring water. This move is a test of whether its sense of quantity is too heavy. Secondly, you can feel whether the position of applying force between your fingers and the kettle handle is comfortable. It is very important to hold it conveniently, otherwise it will not only make you very tired, but also make you more prone to the tragedy of accidentally dropping the pot. Don't be careless Moreover, it is really rude to try your best to show the blue veins on your hands and grin on your face, and guests will not be willing to pick them up.

4). The water flow should be smooth and the water should be cut off quickly. This point is not easy for most teapot to take into account. A good pot produces strong water, smooth arc and round water beam without distortion. Stop pouring water when water is cut off, which is concise and neat, without drooling, and there is no residual water in the pot after pouring water.

Yixing teapot has long been regarded as an ideal tea set. The excellent practical functions of teapots are recorded in Ming and Qing literature. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, people thought that the teapot was "silver-tin, Fujian-Henan porcelain, but it was still suitable for making pottery", because it could give off the color, fragrance and taste of tea without stealing incense and cooking soup. There is also some truth in the sentence "the more you stay, the worse you get".

The reason why the teapot has the above practical functions is mainly determined by the characteristics of purple sand. Purple sand teapot is a kind of porous material with double-hole structure, with high hole density and strong suction. It can absorb the fragrance of tea and keep it for a long time, but glazed ceramic teapot lacks this function. Compared with glazed ceramic teapots, teapot is really not easy to deteriorate and turn sour. This function is determined by the precise and reasonable shape of the teapot itself. The mouth of the teapot is small (the mouth of the teapot has a certain oblique angle), and the lid is closely fitted with a displacement tolerance of 0.5 mm. The lid is of gland structure. However, for glazed teapots, the spout is mostly upward, and the displacement tolerance between spout and lid is about 1.5mm, and the lid forms an embedded lid structure. Because of the high precision of teapot, compared with glazed porcelain teapot, it reduces the passage of air mixed with Aspergillus flavus and other molds into teapot. Therefore, the mud that has relatively promoted the deterioration of tea juice is indeed a unique raw material in Yixing, which has all the chemical and mineral components necessary for pottery making. Microscopic observation shows that the main minerals of purple mud are Yingshi, clay, mica and hematite. At the same time, the particle composition of these minerals (the size of naturally occurring particles) and the moderate mineral composition of purple mud are similar to the characteristics of porcelain raw materials in southern Chinese mainland, that is, their mineral composition belongs to clay. Reasonable chemical, mineral and particle composition makes purple mud have good technological properties such as good plasticity, high green strength and dry shrinkage. The fineness of purple mud grinding should be screened by 60 mesh sieve. It takes time and effort to make the mud too thick; If the mud is too fine, it will stick to the hands, causing the surface of the blank to wrinkle, and at the same time, it will also cause drying, increasing firing shrinkage and lowering firing temperature, thus producing bubble defects. The mud that has passed the 60-mesh sieve is still thick. In the molding process, the whole body of the polishing device is polished to form a dense skin. Because of the existence of cortex, the firing temperature range of the product is expanded. No matter at the upper or lower limit of normal firing temperature, the cortex is easy to sinter, but the inner wall of the pot can still form pores. Therefore, the finishing process of molding has the function of organically connecting mud, molding and firing, giving purple sand a smooth surface, not glazed but full of luster, although it has a certain porosity and no leakage. After the purple mud is fired at 1 150℃, residual timely, mica slag, mullite, hematite and double pores are formed. Double pores make the product have higher pore density and certain porosity. In addition, there are more crystalline phases and less glass phases in purple mud samples. All these characteristics contribute to the good practical function of teapot.

Purple mud is a kind of clay with high iron oxide content, which is purple or light purple. Because the teapot body is not glazed, it still has a large water absorption and porosity after firing. According to the measurement, the water absorption of purple sand teapot is between 65438 0.6% and 7.05%. Therefore, the finished product has good gas adsorption performance and permeability, and the tea made from it has good color, fragrance and taste. Other practical functions also have the advantages of being unpopular and not explosive. Because of the slow heat transfer, teapot is made of boiling water, but it is not popular. At the same time, you can also cook tea on a slow fire, which is not easy to burn. To sum up, the teapot can not only keep the color, fragrance and taste of tea soup, but also have many good functions, such as the tea soup does not deteriorate, and the cold and heat resistance are good, which is really beyond the reach of other ceramic teapot.

2. Teapot technology

Teapot art is famous for its exquisite craftsmanship. Almost all good teapots are hand-molded. Even the green block molding method used for its production and standardization is still quite complicated, so the technological level is an important condition to judge the quality of teapot. The craft of teapot refers to the technical level of making, and it is also the standard to judge the artistic quality of teapot. A good teapot should be in harmony with the overall proportion of the teapot body besides the flow, handle, button, cover, shoulder, abdomen and circle, and the transition of points, lines and surfaces should be clear and smooth. It is still necessary to examine his artistic level from four aspects: mud, shape, wind and merit.

Mud:

The uniqueness of teapot lies in the superiority of making raw material purple sand. Therefore, judging the quality of teapot depends on the quality of mud it uses. Although the change of mud color only brings people visual differences, it has nothing to do with its function. However, as far as the usage habits are concerned, you can constantly touch the teapot when making tea and tasting tea, and achieve the effect of pleasing the mind through the comfort of the hand. Good purple sand mud is "not bright in color but not greasy in quality"

The salient features of. Therefore, the quality of purple sand should be considered when purchasing purple sand pots.

[shape]:

That is, the image of the pot, that is, the shape and style. Zisha pots have a variety of shapes, including colorful and perfect shapes, which gather the creative wisdom and hard work of artists of all ages and are known as "different squares and different circles". As for which shape and style to choose, it is difficult to decide because everyone's psychological needs are different. However, since the teapot is a part of the whole tea culture, the artistic conception it pursues should belong to the artistic conception of "cleaning up the noise, being indifferent to ambition and being detached and refined" pursued by the tea ceremony. However, the artistic conception of "Gu Zhuo is simple and elegant" and tea ceremony culture is the most harmonious, so the modeling consideration of teapot should be able to express the atmosphere of "Gu Zhuo".

"paragraph":

That is, the pot money. Payment for teapots has always been very particular. It is different from the stamp pattern of general works. Because of the rhyme style of pot art and the simultaneous interpretation of painting and calligraphy art, the stamps used are often from the hands of a generation of famous lithograph seal engravers. Appreciation of teapot has two meanings: one is to identify the author of teapot; Appreciate the carved poems, paintings and seals (stone seal cutting) first. The decorative art of teapot combines the artistic features of China traditional art "poetry, calligraphy, painting and printing". Therefore, to appreciate a teapot, we should not only pay attention to the clay, modeling and production skills, but also include literature, calligraphy, painting and epigraphy, so as to bring more beautiful enjoyment to every teapot lover.

"Merit":

It refers to the functional beauty of pot art, which is different from the appeal point of practical function. Over the years, the mainland market has gradually opened up, and a large number of Taiwanese businessmen have intervened in the purple sand market, which has made the sand pot market flourish and new sand pot products have emerged. It's just an innovative work of purple sand artists, which only talks about the formal beauty of modeling and ignores the functional beauty of use. Some artists don't drink tea themselves, and they know little about their drinking habits, which directly affects the function of the sand pot. I believe that in the process of making tea and tasting tea, some sand pots have already appeared a major defect of "looking good but not using it". The functional beauty of teapot is mainly manifested in four aspects: moderate capacity, appropriate height, tight cover and smooth water outlet. According to the current family tea drinking habits, generally two to five people get together to drink, and it is better to use 350 ml. No matter how easy the hand is, it is also called "one-handed pot".

The technological requirements of sand tanks mainly include the following items:

1). Mouth, button, handle, three points in a line. Many collectors pay special attention to this, especially the styles of basic pots, such as horizontal pots and Xi stone pots. It seems simple, but it is not. Even including famous pots, there are still many crooked sand pots. In addition, it is quite common that the upper handle and the lower handle are not on the same vertical line. Of course, this kind of pottery can be kept in a bubble, but what China people pay attention to is "to be large, medium and upright" and "to let it be restrained". Therefore, unless it is a specially designed clay pot, it is advisable to make a careful inspection.

2). The valve should be tightly closed. The round pot should be able to rotate smoothly, the square pot should be flat and not deformed, and the ribbed device should be "all-round". In addition to the above visual inspection and manual test, we can also hold the pot for water injection after the pot body is filled with water, and press the air hole with the index finger. If the pressurization can be stopped immediately without water leakage, it means that the pot cover and the pot body are highly sealed and have little contact with the outside air. Some skilled pot makers can even reach the position where when the spout is plugged, they can lift the whole pot by pressing the pot button.

3). The surface of the pot body is decorated smoothly, the inner wall is neat and neat, and the signature is clear and correct. Usually, the workmanship of a sand pot is good, and we can judge from the appearance whether the Potter has carefully decorated the lines, turns and ridges of the pot body. Also, whether the inscription size, location and depth of this pot are appropriate is also an important reference. In addition, what is most easily overlooked is whether there is construction sludge residue at the joint between the spout of the inner wall of the kettle and the surface of the block, and whether the inner wall and the inner bottom are properly cleaned. These small details are enough to see whether the author's production attitude is rigorous and prudent.

4). The tire soil should be pure and the fire degree should be appropriate. Some earthen pots shine at first glance, but they shine when they are not raised; Have a plenty of thieves floating, strange hue. All these signs indicate that the soil tire of this pot is impure or the author's soil is too poor. Is the sintering temperature of casserole suitable? You need to accumulate experience to make a correct judgment. Generally, you can tap the pot body gently with the lid (please don't use the edge of the lid, which is the weakest part of the whole device) (please be careful not to damage the watch). If sonorous rhymes, it means that the temperature is moderate; If it is chaos and depression, it means that fire is a bit insufficient; On the other hand, if the sound is high and crisp, it will go too far and the pot will be porcelain.

Although everyone's aesthetic accomplishment is different, friends who are new to this field can still follow the following two points for reference:

1). Geometrically shaped casserole should be round and square, straight when the line is straight, and curved when it is bent. Don't choose those with twisted lids and crooked mouths, because these will seriously affect the strength of the whole device. In addition, the size of the accessories of the whole device needs to match the pot body, and it should not be too large, but small nose and small eyes should be avoided.

2). Natural modeling casserole, the realistic should be realistic, and the freehand should be freehand. Because there are many molded flowers, it is necessary to carefully observe whether the whole container is seamless and has no stiff feeling, and also pay attention to whether there are micro-cracks at the contact point between the pot body and the molded flowers to avoid future fracture.

Having said that, the last question is "What's the price of the pot?" In fact, in recent ten years, the rising trend of teapot has been aggressive, hitting record highs, and the tea brewed in pots below 1,000 yuan seems unbearable to the throat. What's more, the price of a pot is often in the hundreds of thousands, which really fulfills the old saying that "pearl jade on earth is not as good as the first pill of soil in Yangxian River". If Shi Dabin and Chen Mingyuan find out underground, they will hate it!

In a word, when we are faced with all kinds of what comes next and the eloquent words of shopkeepers, we must distinguish between "choosing a good pot recognized by others" and "choosing a good pot that is intimate". Because only what suits you is a really good pot. If you insist on drifting with the flow and being arty, you will lose the leisure beauty of tea art.

3. Teapot appreciation

Purple sand art is a kind of artistic creation form that "originates from life and is higher than life". A good teapot should not only pay attention to the perfection of form and exquisite craftsmanship, but also examine the suitability of patterns, decorative materials and manufacturing methods. Besides, pot art itself is emotion. Therefore, a perfect work must be able to express artistic language. It not only facilitates the mouth, but also cultivates the temperament, enlightens the soul and gives people a certain artistic feeling. As the late Zisha master Gu Jingzhou said, "In short, art should be decisive, simple and frank, and show what one feels personally, so that the works can be lifelike and show strong artistic appeal."