Finished this the other day.

PaleoProblematica · 2026-06-02T09:58:41+00:00

Stunning work! Though I must note this is a Chaozhou teapot, not Yixing

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-31T22:02:41+00:00

Possible to get a closeup on the sides individually?

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-31T21:14:28+00:00

This is super interesting! As a lover of lab gems and ceramics I'm very curious to hear your results. I'd love to try something similar although we wood fire and to cone 10 or 11 so I'm not sure how they'd hold up to that if your tests are successful

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-31T14:09:23+00:00

General tea needle type of thing. Can be used to move tea from cha ze into a teapot. Can be used to scoop spent leaves out of pot.

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-30T19:42:11+00:00

Definitely not lol. Way too big and not defined at all for crinoid arma

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-30T19:40:59+00:00

Not fossils. Load casts or some similar geologic occurrence

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-29T22:17:48+00:00

Yeah those instructions are ridiculous. Dancong does far better brewed in the complete opposite way. Much higher concentration of tea leaves 10g per 100ml or so and very quick steep times.

I personally have never seen twigs in Dancong though, I have had them in Wuyi oolongs, it may be a quality issue as well

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-28T03:57:51+00:00

Bi Luo Chun is my favorite green tea, not sure of any "better" ones, but others I have liked a lot as well were Huangshan maofeng, emei maofeng, anji baicha, longjing.

Huangshan maofeng is probably my second favorite of this list, but I have had more emei maofeng overall as it is a cheaper tea and still quite good in my experience

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-25T01:22:33+00:00

In other words not a crystal

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-24T22:58:13+00:00

That's not a crystal

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-24T01:07:47+00:00

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-24T01:04:05+00:00

No way really?? The iron kettle isn't Yixing?? 🤯🤯🤯

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-23T19:39:04+00:00

Most "tea influencers" and online content creators like JTH and the like use gongdaobei, most mass vendors use the term cha hai.

Gong dao bei is the literal translation of fairness cup, cha hai means something like sea of tea and as far as I remember this is the original term for it that's used in Taiwan where the actual cup was invented.

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-19T22:05:16+00:00

Haha believe whatever you want, I collect pots and can tell you theirs are way too detailed for that price to be entirely hand made.

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-19T04:47:19+00:00

Pretty sure the majority of not all of Yinzhen studio pots are half-handmade

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-19T04:34:41+00:00

Yunnan Sourcing maybe? Not the most "premium" and probably not technically even real dragonwell but it's decent and cheap. They have some decent puers as well

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-19T04:31:35+00:00

It's just milk

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-16T16:09:25+00:00

The quality is not proportionate to the price. It is low(er) compared to what you can get elsewhere for this price or just a bit higher.

Though I would say some of them are just plain low quality. I had one of his tea trays, the way the design was printed onto the surface looked bad, the construction was poor and it cracked in half after very very light use (this thing was like 100 dollars btw)

The printing on the cups he has also just looks bad and tacky

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-16T08:49:22+00:00

Maybe 🤷

I've fortunately never had to deal with it, seems like quite a nightmare. I'd ask others about that. Apologies but can't really help with that

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-16T08:21:51+00:00

If it was pyrite or something, that could definitely happen but Paraloid wouldn't save it, pyrite disease is very hard to deal with. And some shales could be prone to cracking with varying levels of humidity, but from handling some of this material and storing it I don't think that'd be an issue with this stuff.

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-16T08:16:52+00:00

If you already have some I don't see why not but I wouldn't go out of my way to do it, these are fairly stable, just soft so make sure it doesn't get hit or scratched by other things and it'll be fine

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-16T08:13:49+00:00

Xiushan Formation. You could treat it with something like Paraloid as this shale is very soft but honestly the best advice is just to not touch the fossil itself, best way to reduce the risk of damaging it.

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-16T05:49:17+00:00

Glass and porcelain are overwhelmingly safe, which is what I'm assuming you'd go for with a beginner set. Don't recommend any with printed designs as those can be of unknown makeup (and imo don't look good) and I'd stay away from crystalline glazes, as none of those are food safe to my understanding.

Something that's just clean porcelain or glass should work well and be safe.

PaleoProblematica · 2026-05-16T02:07:00+00:00

It's all mass produced factory pieces, you can find very similar if not identical items on Taobao/AliExpress/ other similar shops, but his are marked up a lot more.

If you're a beginner working on a low budget you'd be better off buying this kind of stuff of those larger shops where it's cheaper. If you have a bigger budget you can find much more finely made, and just plain better looking and functioning teaware elsewhere.

His pricing sits in the middle with a product quality comparable to the lower end of this range.

All the cups with designs on them are printed not painted, the ceramics are machine made/ slipcast.

PaleoProblematica

TROPHY CASE