What is the difference between a teacup, a tealight and a tea bowl?
01 What is the difference between tea cups, tea jars and tea bowls
The teacup is the utensil to hold the tea, water from the teapot and pour into the teacup, and then give the guests to taste the tea. Tea cups are divided into two sizes: small cups are mainly used for oolong tea tasting, also known as tasting cup, is used in conjunction with the fragrance cup; large cups can also be used directly for making tea and holding tea utensils, mainly used for senior fine tea tasting.
Tea jar - Su Dongpo's famous line "never good tea like a good person", typically represents the Tang and Song dynasties and later literati, the obvious tendency of tea as a spiritual enjoyment. Tea calendars have been recorded before the Tang Dynasty, "Boya" said: "jan cup" in the Song Dynasty began to have the name of "tea cup". Lu You had written: "rattan staff sometimes edge stone stare, wind stove with the disposal of tea cups" of the poem. Modern people are mostly called tea cup or tea jar. Tea jar is a tea drinking utensil.
The tea bowl is made of pottery, so it directly reflects the highest achievement of Chinese pottery craft, very famous "Raku kiln", "Weibu kiln", "Shino kiln" produced the tea bowl, is under the direct guidance of the famous tea people, by the skilled craftsmen to produce the best and thing tea bowl.
In addition to the Wagyu tea bowls, two other important sources of tea bowls are the Jian'an kiln in Tianmu Mountain and the Koryo country in China. The former is called "Tianmu tea bowl", is the earliest tea bowl used in the tea ceremony, very valuable, but as Li Huo and others gradually lead the tea ceremony to the simple and natural, Tianmu tea bowl no longer flow, but the value is increasing day by day. The Goryeo tea bowl is actually the rice bowl of Goryeo folk, very simple and rough, but in the eyes of Li Hugh and other great tea people, but just reflect the essence of the tea ceremony, so it was used in large quantities.
02 About Jianjian
Encyclopedia says: Jianjian is a traditional famous Chinese porcelain. It was the imperial tea set of the Song Dynasty. All with positive firing, so the mouth edge glaze layer is thin, while the vessel inside the bottom of the polyglaze thicker; outer wall is often half glazed to avoid the bottom of the kiln in the firing of sticky kiln. As the glaze in the high temperature flow easily, so there are hanging glaze phenomenon, commonly known as "glaze tears", "glaze drops beads". This is one of the characteristics of Jianjian.
To understand the same thing, from its history and culture to understand. Jianjian, created and fired in the late Tang and Five Dynasties period, flourished in the two Song dynasties, is the imperial tea service in the Song dynasty, because the production from the Song Jianzhou Province Jian'an County (Jiangyang City, Shuiji Town, after the well village), so called Jianjian. It is the representative of black porcelain, one of the eight famous porcelains of the Chinese Song Dynasty.
The Song Dynasty is famous for the heyday of the rule of literature, focusing on the rites of rulers and ministers, the popular style of the scholars and the aesthetic standards of elegance, refinement and simplicity. The prevalence of tea drinking style, but also to promote the design and production of tea calendars continue to refine, on the basis of inherited tradition, more attention to the continuous development of innovation.
Song Dynasty craftsmen tea calendars process has been perfected, the achievement of the long-lasting charm of today is still unique. The ancient art of tea drinking thus climbed to the peak, the Song Dynasty tea marigold become an excellent cultural carrier.
03 Jianjian production
Clay selection: The original mineral clay near the kiln site of Jian Kiln in Song Dynasty (Houjing Village, Shuji Town, Jianyang City) is selected as the clay, because of the high iron content, and it shows the quality of "iron tire" after firing.
Glaze preparation: choose the original mineral glaze stone used in the Song Dynasty Jian Kiln as the basic raw material, supplemented by local red clay and grass ash, etc., ball mill into a slurry, filtered and set aside. Jianjian introductory knowledge to understand at a glance
Jianjian's firing process goes through 13 processes, including selecting porcelain ore, crushing porcelain ore, panning, ingredients, aging, training mud, kneading mud, billet, repairing billet, plain firing, glazing, kiln loading, and roasting.
To fire a good Jianjian, the rate of finished products is very low, sometimes fired a kiln full of defective products are possible, can be said to be one in a thousand, more perfect to be one in a million.
Do a good and beautiful Jianjian not only to grasp every aspect of the above, the control of the temperature is also extremely important. So treat your hands of the calendula, because these are the heart and soul of the master burner.
04 Types of Jianjian
The common point of Jianjian shape is that the bowl mouth is large, the foot ring is small, resembling a funnel. According to the changes of the mouth, abdomen and foot, Jianjian is divided into four types of mouth, converging mouth, skimming mouth and open mouth. Jianjian introductory knowledge at a glance to understand
Each type is also divided into large, medium and small, with small and medium vessels being the majority. Large-sized vessels have a diameter of 15cm or more, medium-sized vessels have a diameter of 11cm-15cm, and small-sized vessels have a diameter of 11cm or less. Let's look at them separately.
01. Bound mouth type
The characteristics of the bundle mouth: the mouth edge is curved, the outer edge is concave inward, and the inner wall forms a convex circle (water line) accordingly.
Song Dynasty tea doujinshi was used, 12.5 centimeters of the doujinshi is the standard tea doujinshi. From the current excavation and heirloom Jianjian, it is also the most number of the mouth of the marble. It is also the most dominant type of vessel at present. Jianjian introductory knowledge will be understood at a glance
02, convergence mouth type
The characteristics of the convergence mouth: the mouth edge is slightly converged inward, and the overall shape is plump. The common ones in the market are Zen cup, Bonjour cup, egg cup, etc. Jianjian introductory knowledge to understand at a glance
03, skewed mouth type
The characteristics of the skewed mouth: the mouth is flared. The belly of the marble has a clear curvature. Skewed mouth is more ornamental. The lines of the belly and the outward extension of the mouth are the key to distinguishing between open and skewed marigolds. Jianjian introductory knowledge at a glance to understand
04, open mouth type
The characteristics of open-mouth type: the outer wall is straight and slightly curved. Basically, it is close to a straight line. In fact, this is what we often call the "bucket hat jian", because the overall shape of this type of jian like a great bucket, so the image of so called.
For friends who are new to Jianjian, sometimes can not distinguish between open and skimmed marble, and sometimes easy to confuse the convergence of the mouth of the marble and the mouth of the marble. In fact, it is easy to distinguish after mastering the unique characteristics of each marble type.
05 Jianjian's mysterious glaze beauty
Jian kiln glaze color is divided into two categories: black glaze and miscellaneous glaze. Jian kiln black glaze in the high temperature (1300 degrees) firing process, the single iron from the glaze and tire reduction, according to the kiln fire level and atmosphere changes, so as to produce different patterns. This pattern is difficult to predict, difficult to grasp, using the same glaze, but "into the kiln a color, out of the kiln million colors", which is also the "natural" principle of Jianjian, if the addition of different chemical ingredients, is not the true meaning of Jianjian.
Jianjian black glaze mainly has aurora glaze, rabbit hair glaze, oil drip glaze.
1.rabbit hair glaze
Rabbit hair is the most typical and largest production of Jian kiln glaze varieties, the Song people for Jianjian glaze color preference tendency to rabbit hair is the main, this tendency even people often "rabbit hair calendars" as a synonym for Jianjian. The "rabbit hair" is in the black base glaze dialysis uniform fine filamentous stripes, shaped like hair on the rabbit, rabbit hair and according to different colors, divided into "brown rabbit hair", "gold rabbit hair" The rabbit hair is divided into "brown rabbit hair", "gold rabbit hair", "silver rabbit hair", "blue rabbit hair" rabbit hair to fine, elongated, clear, evenly distributed from the bowl wall inside and outside to the bottom of the bowl dense for the top quality.
Silver hare's hair is the best for its snow white and shiny color. The gold and blue hare's hair is of the highest quality with golden and blue light.
There are also three colors set in one lamp, called "three colors of rabbit hair calendars. Song Huizong in his book "Da Guan tea theory" said "the color of the jade hairs on the top for the blue and black. This is the meaning.
Jianjian introductory knowledge to understand at a glance
2. Oil drop
Oil drop glaze is one of the special varieties of black glaze.
Characterized by many small dots with silver gray metallic luster scattered on the glaze, the size varies, large diameter of several millimeters, small only pinpoint size, resembling oil drops, so the name "oil drop glaze".
Oil drop glaze belongs to the crystalline glaze, due to the firing of iron oxides in the saturated state, and in the form of hematite and magnetite from the precipitation of crystals, thus forming "oil drop" spot.
Miscellaneous color glaze mainly has persimmon red glaze, tea leaves end glaze, green glaze, crackle glaze, gray skin glaze, gray glaze, sauce glaze, all belong to the fire is not high enough, or fire too high products. In addition, there are rainbow spots, iso-hair calendars, rust spots, tiger skin spots, etc.
Different glaze color firing, temperature from low to high for the tea end of the glaze → ugold → oil drops → rabbit hairs → sauce color → persimmon red.
1. Persimmon red glaze
Persimmon red glaze is a variety of Jianjian glaze because the color of the fired glaze is similar to the red color of persimmons after ripening, so named persimmon red glaze Jianjian. Persimmon red glaze is a high temperature product of Jianjian, very suitable for drinking tea, especially rock tea, pu-erh tea, the more beautiful the jian is raised persimmon red glaze glaze luster is not strong, reddish-brown glaze dark red plus crystal points. Kiln temperature is too high, the spot pattern precipitation is too much, too dense, covering the base color of the glaze, or the reduction is not enough or billet iron oxide content is too low, there will be such a variety.
2. Tea leaves end glaze
Tea leaves end glaze is a variety of Jianjian glaze. Generally green or green, often accompanied by ice cracks, the greener the color of the tea end glaze, the clearer, the higher the degree of glass with ice cracks, the better the quality, the higher the price
3. Gray skin glaze
Gray skin glaze is a variety of Jianjian kiln glaze, the glaze is generally gray or dark gray. Glaze is more evenly applied, glaze has a protruding shape, there is a thin layer of black within the gray glaze. Of course, there are also some gray glaze, crackle glaze, sauce glaze, rainbow spot, different hair marble...
Jianjian precious products are the few superior products selected by comparison among more than tens of millions of Jianjian, which were produced in the context of the frenzied tea fighting in the Song Dynasty, a labor-intensive process, and they are the products of a truly difficult combination of earth and fire ceramics. Jian kiln production is now in Tokyo, Japan, Shizukado Yao Tianmu is internationally recognized as the world's most famous bowl. Many domestic museums and some of the world's most famous museums have Jianjian in their collections, a veritable treasure of the world's ceramic art.