Chapter Discussion Sections: 

• 00:00 Introduction 
• 00:20 Tea Clay Interactions 
• 06:32 What Under Fired Means 
• 09:37 Flavor Interaction of Underfired Pots 
• 13:06 Why Study Flaws 
• 18:04 Research Rabbit Hole 
• 26:19 Polyphenols and Catalysis 
• 28:19 Adsorption vs Absorption 
• 30:56 Why Is Tea Clay Interactions So Understudied 
• 33:00 How Does Team Know They’re Publishing Good Science

Chapter Discussion Sections:

• 00:00 Introduction 
• 00:24 What Counts as a Flaw 
• 06:35 Black Coring Explained 
• 09:05 Magnetism as an Identifier 
• 10:05 Why the Science Matters 
• 13:52 Book as a Story 
• 17:25 Why Collect Black Core Pots 
• 21:44 The Effect on Tea with Black Core Pots 
• 24:43 Would You Buy One

[a transcript is available on the teatechnique.org episode page] 

Chapter Discussion Sections: 

• 00:00 Introduction
• 00:40 Excitement Level
• 05:16 Menghai 101 Background
• 09:59 What 7542 Means
• 12:10 Western Market Perceptions
• 14:46 Trip Itinerary Teasers
• 19:30 What will be the Menghai Experience?
• 21:17 Prepping for the Trip
• 29:14 What sensory experience the team is excited for?
• 32:10 Research Methodology
• 35:40 Nancy’s Puer Learning Curve
• 39:13 Education in Tea Tasting
• 42:53 Hot or Not Tea Mountains

Chapter Discussion Sections:

• 00:00 Introduction
• 00:31 What Is “Wuhui”? (焐灰)
• 01:43 Origins & Rise to Fame
• 03:27 Modern Production Methods
• 06:03 Supply, Demand & Reputation
• 08:07 Spotting True Wuhui vs Colorizers
• 13:08 How Wuhui Brews: Flavor Effects
• 16:42 Why Wuhui Is Back in Vogue

[a transcript is available on the teatechnique.org episode page] 

Chapter Discussion Sections: 

• 00:00 Introduction 
• 00:28 Impact of Kiln Types on Fired Zisha Wares 
• 03:52 Identifying Kiln Types 
• 05:24 Are Electric Kiln Fired Wares Worse? 
• 12:44 Economic and Community Implications of Electric Kilns 
• 18:35 Contemporary Innovations in Electric Kilns 
• 24:26 Electric Fired on reducing Zisha’s unique surface texture 
• 28:11 Future of Yixing Teapot Craft

Transcript 

[00:00:05] Jason Cohen: Hello everyone. I'm Jason Cohen, the author of an Introduction to the Art and Science of Chinese Tea Ceremony. Today we're discussing book two, chapter 10, section six, Electric Kilns. Here to talk about this chapter is our editorial team, Patrick Penny. 

[00:00:19] Pat Penny: Hey. Hey! 

[00:00:19] Jason Cohen: Zongjun Li. 

[00:00:21] Zongjun Li: Hello. 

[00:00:22] Jason Cohen: And Emily Huang. 

[00:00:24] Emily Huang: Hi, 

[00:00:25] Jason Cohen: Full house. Hello everyone.

This is our last section on a specific kiln type, focusing on what is likely the end state of the technology ladder for firing Zisha clay. And it presents us with some, I hope, interesting questions about the use of technology, the value of tradition, and the economic versus artistic trade-offs within Yixing teapot production.

We've now gone from wood-burning dragon kilns, which lasted a, a few hundred years to tiny 20 teapot electric kilns in the span of about 40 years. Is the progression of kiln types, the largest single variable affecting the material properties of fired zisha wares?

[00:01:05] Pat Penny: I don't think it necessarily is, but it can be. So I think whether it's the type of kiln that's being fired in or the, the actual firing itself, so the temperature and time, the rate of firing, we know, and we've gone over in this book many of the reasons why firing is so important, but I do not think that the changes in kilns personally is the biggest variable that affects the material properties of this zisha clay.

From, the really early stages of this book, we talked about all the processing of the ore. I think we went into quite a lot of detail about how the processing plays a large, maybe outsized role in how the actual material is gonna interact with tea. But then from there, I would say, whether you fire an electric kiln or you fire in a pushbat kiln or dragon kiln, as long as you fire properly, while there will be material differences in the topology and pore structure, you're gonna end up with, if you had good materials to start and good process, a good usable teapot. The difference between the dragon kiln fired and that same clay fired in electric kiln will be different. But I do not think it's the single largest driver of a variation. 

[00:02:20] Zongjun Li: It is a pretty large factor though especially for a lot of these newer innovation in kiln types. We are really moving from this old traditional long dragon kiln into a pushbat into downdraft into modern days electric kiln. This is almost like a summary of human civilization development in the past hundred years. 

[00:02:42] Jason Cohen: Yes. The industrialization

[00:02:44] Zongjun Li: Industrialization! And especially, in electric kilns you can really achieve some, like really fine tuning control that cannot be achieved previously before in any other kilns. Not to mention about some fine tweaking of atmosphere in the firing chamber. So, is it the single largest impact? I don't think so. As Pat said, ore refinements, ore processed and clay processed, clay aging, like all, all of those contributes to the final effect of the teapot.

[00:03:13] Pat Penny: It's such a, such a loaded question from Jason. He's just throwing this, this big one that's just like all or nothing. And, and we all know and every listener, I think, after listening to us talk for this long and reading the chapters. I feel like there is no one single largest variable, right? It's such an amalgamation of so many of the factors that we've already talked about, right? So, way, way to try and make it like, hot takes right from the beginning, Jason. 

[00:03:36] Jason Cohen: You guys, you guys, 

[00:03:37] Zongjun Li: Now it's time to vote. It is time to take a stand. Like which one is the most important, Pat? 

[00:03:43] Pat Penny: Yeah.

This, this is the discussion that everyone's gonna be talking about over the next week. This is the real election that we're all here for. 

[00:03:51] Zongjun Li: Yeah.

[00:03:52] Jason Cohen: Can you tell if a ware was fired in an electric kiln?

[00:03:56] Emily Huang: I personally cannot just by looking at it. I probably have not established a large enough database for myself to distinguish that. Not saying that it's not possible, but I'm just saying I personally can't. 

[00:04:12] Pat Penny: I'd like to follow up on that because I, I think I can.

But we did just commission a set of pots with same ore, same clay being fired across three different kiln types. And so I'm gonna put that knowledge to the test pretty soon and see if the differences in firing type are actually the differences I thought they were, or if it's some other cross information streams that, that didn't actually come together when I start to synthesize these learnings, so, uh, 

[00:04:40] Zongjun Li: Well, supposedly, the very homogenized temperature variation inside the kiln is going to create this very smooth, very bright, glossy surface of the teapot. That's not quite the same as other kiln type that are fired with combustion. So, it's usually a little brighter and smoother than other teapots. But you know, I can definitely point my finger at it, I say wow, that's an electric kiln fire teapot with full confidence. Maybe not, but,

[00:05:14] Pat Penny: Maybe six times outta 10 though, right? Maybe 60% of the time. Maybe even a little bit more.

Jason, do you wanna talk a little bit about the set you commissioned, which might be a helpful tool for all of us? 

[00:05:24] Jason Cohen: I do. It's interesting 'cause I've asked this question on every kiln type. Can you tell if, if a ware was fired in a dragon kiln and a pushbat kiln and now an electric kiln? And for the most part we said maybe with an okay success rate for a dragon kiln, both because dragon kilns are a little more obvious because of the historical wares and the dynastic period and when it stopped. So it gives us a lot of information about the shapes, the designs, and what was being produced during the F1 period. And now there's no dragon kilns fired. Woodfired, other types of downdraft woodfire kilns, we have an okay success rate.

Then we said basically no wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the shuttle kilns and the pushbat kilns and these other things. And now we're back to an electric kiln. For the first time, we're starting to say, yeah, you know what, we can, we can probably tell, right? Six times out of 10, seven times out of 10. Because I also think the majority of the time I would be able to tell if something was fired in an electric kiln, and so that raises a question of if this is different and this is different from what came before it, and it's different from the other kiln types where we'd have much more difficulty telling then is there a problem with electric fired teapots? Are electric kilns worse in some ways since if, if they're so noticeably different?

[00:06:40] Pat Penny: I'll start off, and then I'm interested in hearing Emily and Zongjun's thoughts. But I, I am really excited to receive this set that you've commissioned because I do believe from either the experiences that we've had with, you know, antique teapots, various wood-fired, either pushbat kiln, downdraft kiln created teapots versus a lot of the modern pots that I own today, I do believe there's less of an impact, less of an interaction between electric fired, electric kiln created teapots and, and some of their predecessors.

I think a lot of the difference that I see is, is slightly less interaction. So, I think part of that is a change in process over time as well. So we discussed, I think, double firing quite extensively in the past couple podcasts. But with dragon kiln, downdraft kiln, you have a lot of single fired teapots, and I think that creates more interaction between your teapot and your tea. Whether that's a good thing or not depends on the tea that you're brewing and what you're trying to achieve. But I would say that teapots have become, modern teapots fired in electric kilns are a more homogenous tool than their predecessors were.

[00:07:47] Zongjun Li: I was shipping out the teapot to you guys last week and I have personally seen teapots. So a little bit of a spoiler alert, but they look very visibly different in terms of skin color and the surface texture. So, it'll be very interesting to see the effect. I haven't tried them yet, but i'm waiting for you guys to get it and we can try together.

[00:08:12] Pat Penny: Jason, can you just 

[00:08:13] Jason Cohen: Yeah. 

[00:08:13] Pat Penny: kind of ground us a little bit on what the set was. Is everything single fired? What was the clay? 

[00:08:17] Jason Cohen: Everything is single fired. It's Shaft Mine number four, original 10 year aged zini. This is not quite the Tianqingni zini that we have for our other triplet set, which has just consistently been a, a crowd favorite. But this is very, very good zini and it has been single fired in three different kilns. So it's a triplet, one is gas, one is electric, and one is a wood-fired downdraft kiln, all single fired. And the goal here, the theory is that they are going to have different levels of interaction with tea. They're gonna have different effects on the tea and we'll be able to use this set to help aid in the research we've been doing in this book, which promotes a two part theory.

One part which we're gonna discuss a little bit here and that I discussed in the chapter is that much of the contemporary firings, the stability, the atmosphere have led to a reduced impact for a Yixing teapot's interaction with tea just as double firing has.

And the second part of the theory is a causal mechanism, which is that it's surface texture. All of this stuff about porosity, which we've said before, I'm not a fan of the porosity theory. I don't believe that there's any evidence for it. In fact, I think that the evidence is predominantly against it.

But a catalytic surface interaction between the tea liquid, the headspace of aromatic compounds coming off the tea and the recondensation or the volatilization of various volatiles and other interactions happening because of catalytic surface texture on both single fire doing it more and on, on wood fire, of course, doing it most.

[00:09:59] Pat Penny: Emily didn't quite get a chance to answer the question either. I know we've gone on a long tangent since then. So Emily, do you think electric firing, good or bad? I think is the hot take here.

[00:10:08] Emily Huang: Yeah, both Pat and Zongjun mentioned good or bad really at the end of the day comes down to what are you using it for, right? Or what are you looking for in a teapot? If you're just looking for a teapot that can brew decent tea and practical, I'm sure all of the contemporary and electrical ones are good enough. But if you're looking for a more rich interaction and looking for the effects whether it's double firing or the texture of the teapot and if you're a collector, all of that would be different. So I don't think this can be answered in just like a good or bad yes or no answer type. 

[00:10:47] Pat Penny: I think Emily, you did bring up a great point. When we're talking about tea and teapots, we're always talking about our most idealized scenario, where we're really putting as much focus and attention on the tea and the wares as possible, there is of course a time and a place for a double fired, electric kiln teapot. It's obviously more economical if this is your first teapot and you're just getting into Chinese tea and you're not sure you're totally off the deep end yet, and ready to throw down cash on antique shipwreck ware that might've been dragon fired kiln or something like that. Then don't worry about all of these nuances that we're talking about between whether an electric kiln is a, a positive or a negative thing.

I think for a market standpoint, it's a positive thing. It's allowed Yixing artisans to have a smaller and less cost prohibitive means of creating their teapots. They're able to get more of them on the market. Whether they're good or bad, obviously, everyone can decide with their wallets at what they think. But an electric kiln fired teapots are not necessarily a bad thing. But if you do wanna go off the deep end, that's when you're gonna want to learn the differences that these kilns have on teapots and the interaction you have from there with your tea. 

[00:11:58] Jason Cohen: This loops right back to our first question, which was, what is the primary effect? Right? There are great electric teapots that are fired that, that have amazing ore, that have rare ores, that have well aged ores, that have been fired in electric, that are still going to have a positive impact. We're talking shades of degrees here, where these types of variations and differences make sense when you're paying $19 a gram for Wuyi yancha.

[00:12:27] Pat Penny: You're only paying 19? Oh man, they charged us 90 at that last place we visited. 

[00:12:34] Jason Cohen: Yeah. Different. It wasn't laocong. They didn't get the laocong.

[00:12:36] Pat Penny: They didn't take up the gold teapot for you yet. 

[00:12:39] Jason Cohen: So, in my conception, it's not so much unidirectionally good or bad. I certainly agree, and I think you brought up a great point about the economics which is actually my next question, and what are the economic implications of an electric kiln to small Yixing studios?

[00:12:54] Zongjun Li: Oh, it's cheap. It's small. You can turn it on and off whenever you want. 

[00:12:59] Jason Cohen: And I hear electricity is free in China, is that right? 

[00:13:03] Zongjun Li: Almost free. But this is literally like a oven in your kitchen. You can use it whenever you want. This really allows for individual artists to do testing, to do experiment, and to progress and improve in a very economical way. 

[00:13:22] Pat Penny: I think there's a convenience factor to it as well. Of course, not having to schedule time in one of the larger community run kilns. But when we think about the degree of control that you can get with electric kilns, I would posit that artisans who are making small batches nowadays are able to see a much higher yield on their inputs versus when they're using kilns that have some kind of combustion or combustible material within it, an atmospheric shift within it. Because obviously they still need to control the ore that goes in and their blending and all that is still important. But with such a fine degree of control, I would think there's less crackage that's going to occur. And certainly less impact to their yield which is good for them if they're just starting or strapped on cash. Who knows? 

[00:14:07] Jason Cohen: Pat, you and I are definitely on the same wavelength. That leads me perfectly to my next question which is, do electric kilns represent a discontinuity in the communal craft within the Yixing teapot industry? Are small zisha studios using electric kiln now, bowling alone, so to speak. For those unfamiliar, with Bowling Alone was a 1980s American political science journal article that posited that the closure of bowling alleys was a downstream reflective effect of the isolation in contemporary Western culture. It's been widely acclaimed and disputed and opinions on this article go back and forth every 10 years or so. But it is still widely cited and widely discussed in political science programs and now also in sociology programs.

There's something to the idea that there's fewer third places in many cultures and that the decline of these third places is indicative of the United States potentially or western society, potentially transitioning to a lower trust society. And so having been on these large kiln sites where we, we talked about it in the last editorial conversation where there's all of these, there's the kiln itself, but there's all these micro businesses with maybe just one or a couple people surrounding the kiln, creating a true community site. And so my question to you is, do these electric kilns represent a discontinuity in the communal craft within the Yixing teapot industry?

[00:15:35] Zongjun Li: I think it's a interesting concern, right? It's, it's not just the ecosystem surrounding all these bigger kilns, but like all these local artists, they will gather around the kiln and share their newest design or share their newest ore findings and all that. This is a very interesting and organic and healthy foundation of a community. If electric kiln is going to do any damage on that, I don't necessarily think so. Those kilns still exist in Yixing and many of these teapots are not, especially the artisanal teapots, are not just fired in electric kilns. A lot of them are double fired maybe once in electric, once in other kiln types to reach certain surface texture that the artist want to have. So, it is it reducing communication amongst artists? I, I don't necessarily think so.

[00:16:26] Pat Penny: There's so many other parts and touch points in the ecosystem too as we've talked about in previous podcasts, so like zhengkou studio. Just because you're firing in your electric kiln at home doesn't mean you're not gonna leverage the zhengkou studio or you're not gonna go to the knob expert to get your knobs. I think there's probably still, why is everyone laughing at that? I think there's probably still a lot of touch points within the community, Zongjun alluded to. Knobs.

[00:16:50] Emily Huang: Echoing to Zongjun's reaction, I thought it's interesting that you brought this up. I feel like it's so tangled in how everyone's lifestyle has changed. It was a lot of human communication, but now it's all like digital. But that doesn't really mean that there is less of a community. Just that the community has shifted to another form. Rather than everyone gathering around the kilns and, and discussing about it. Maybe they have their own, I don't know, Weixin chat and their Weibo groups and they're selling on TikTok and all that. 

[00:17:29] Pat Penny: Such a great point. Emily. 

[00:17:31] Zongjun Li: It's a electric kiln, not a digital kiln. Like you're not firing a digital 

[00:17:37] Pat Penny: your teapot NFTs 

[00:17:38] Zongjun Li: with like non fungible, like blockchain and

[00:17:43] Jason Cohen: burning it in. We're burning onto the blockchain. 

[00:17:46] Pat Penny: Okay, but we should do that. Let's get these Tea Technique. Yeah, Yixing NFTs going.

But yeah, I think to Emily's point. Like to what Emily was saying, 10 or 11 years ago, the conversation we're having right now would've taken place in the Tea House at Penn State. Yes, we still have that community. We're still here talking to each other. Talking and learning about tea, digitally, right? Like we, this medium, what we're doing right now would not have existed or been able to exist digitally just 15 years ago. And so it just shows how technology, while yes, it does change the way we interface, it does enable us to had this community in a, in a different way. So I think Jason, bringing it back to your Bowling Alone, maybe, maybe they're scrolling alone now, but they, they do go to the bowling alleys together every now and then.

[00:18:31] Jason Cohen: Breakout in a TikTok Fortnite dance. 

[00:18:34] Pat Penny: Yeah. At the bowling alley. 

[00:18:35] Jason Cohen: Is there any contemporary innovation in electric kiln firing, or has the art form turned into an engineering project with all the computerized controls?

[00:18:45] Pat Penny: A lot of our teapot commissions are like designed in CAD, aren't they? 

[00:18:50] Jason Cohen: Yeah. 

[00:18:50] Pat Penny: So I don't know if there's a, a big issue with that CAD design teapot then being fired in a PID controlled kiln. I don't see an issue. 

[00:19:00] Jason Cohen: Not an issue, but the question is, is there innovation? Where, where are changes happening? Or have we just hit the technological end state?

[00:19:08] Emily Huang: I think it's hard to know, especially being in the present, if we're in the end state or not. I'm sure over time, we reach a point where technology in the future advances even more that leads to a more precise or more innovative design of the kiln. But, I guess we can only let time tell us whether if we're at the end state or not.

[00:19:34] Pat Penny: Yeah, I feel like there, there will be something else. Just because this is what's most convenient and where we've reached today with our technology does not mean there won't be any other innovation. And I think obviously, yeah, we are, we're not on the ground all the time. So, we don't see the latest innovations. But I, I wouldn't be surprised if you know, as energy technologies change, right? We're looking at electric cars and we're looking at potentially the transition to hydrogen fuel cell and all that. I would not be surprised if other fuel or energy sources start to be leveraged. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a continual shrinking of kiln sizes. So. 

[00:20:09] Jason Cohen: Single people wind powered blast kiln. 

[00:20:11] Pat Penny: Exactly, exactly. And you just, when that one's done, it's like the easy bake oven. You take it out, you put your next one in.

[00:20:16] Emily Huang: Portable. Yeah. Portable setting and the control by your phone. 

[00:20:21] Pat Penny: Fire on the go. Yeah. 

[00:20:22] Jason Cohen: But we're, we're still getting away from the question, is there contemporary innovation? What are current Yixing artists firing an electric kiln, what are they changing? What are they experimenting with? Are they finding any improvements with an electric kiln?

[00:20:38] Zongjun Li: Well, since people have adopted the technology, one thing that people keep annoying at is how homogenize the atmosphere inside the electrical kiln is. And there are recent technology being able to adjust the atmosphere using kind of like a compartmentalized burning chamber that can flush the electric kiln chamber with different reduction gas to control the reduction and oxidation firing atmosphere for the kiln. So I, I would say that's one of the major innovation speaking of the electrical kiln. 

[00:21:11] Pat Penny: I was really hoping Zongjun was gonna talk about how they're firing NFTs digitally now in, in our NFT kilns. But, but thank you for answering the question, Zongjun.

[00:21:20] Emily Huang: So all that aside, I think one thing that's important for us to remember is the, the firing time that the electric kilns has really brought to us. What usually would take maybe up to days in the dragon kilns is now maybe just a few hours in the electric kilns. And so that by itself, when we say time is money, time is literally money. It's a lot of savings. It is more convenient. 

[00:21:49] Jason Cohen: But the, the, the firing times are now increasing again. Right after the electric kilns were introduced, firing times shortened, but now through contemporary innovation experimentation Yixing artisans are finding that it should lengthen, right? So do we, do we consider this a form of innovation? 

[00:22:06] Emily Huang: Yeah. I personally think that's a form of innovation because what previously was a constraint, now it's a control. It's something that the artists can play with. 

[00:22:16] Zongjun Li: But looping back to the question, so you're increasing firing time but actually you're saving time because the increased time trajectory was so slow that now people are putting half dried teapot into the kiln so that it will get dry as the kiln gets heat up. So, you're actually saving days of drying time for the unfired wares. 

[00:22:39] Jason Cohen: And we're still seeing the benefit of lengthening the firing time, right? Of doing a longer preheat with half dried wares, we're actually still seeing a benefit. So even with the speed up, it's not a speed up of economization, right? It's a speed up of benefit. The final ware is superior. That's a question.

[00:22:58] Emily Huang: Yes. 

[00:23:02] Jason Cohen: Emily says yes. 

[00:23:02] Zongjun Li: Yes, yes. 

[00:23:04] Jason Cohen: Zongjun says yes. I say, probably. 

[00:23:08] Pat Penny: Three yeses and a probably across the board. 

[00:23:11] Jason Cohen: Alright. If you, if you take your half dry teapot, don't put it into a full heat fire. You have to have a pre-heat period. If you lengthen your pre-heat period and that seems beneficial then, then the whole thing is an innovation.

[00:23:23] Zongjun Li: You kind of see that previously done in other kiln types, right? Like people putting their half dried teapot right next to a pushbat kiln or a, a dragon kiln. So they would dry faster. So I guess it's a similar idea. 

[00:23:37] Jason Cohen: We saw, we saw people who were not gonna fire an electric kiln pointing a fan at the Yixing teapots to carry away moisture faster. Said this, this cuts down drying time by half a day or so. 

[00:23:49] Zongjun Li: Yeah, Yeah. 

[00:23:50] Jason Cohen: It does wonders. All of the Yixing artisans, cigarette smoke, ash, it's blown right onto the pot, just adds a little combustible material onto that surface. 

[00:24:00] Pat Penny: Really great for your skincare routine too. We were sitting there just getting blasted by the fan. We've got the Yixing moisture kind of evaporating up onto our faces. The cigarette smoke. If you're looking for a spa day, I've got a town for you. It's called Dingshuzhen.

They have one craft beer bar that's a 30 minute taxi away that you might not get a taxi back to Dingshuzhen with. 

[00:24:22] Zongjun Li: It's a one way ticket. 

[00:24:24] Pat Penny: It was a one way ticket. 

[00:24:26] Jason Cohen: My last question. I have a theory about electric kilns that we began to discuss in the early part of this editorial conversation, we should discuss a little further here.

And that theory is that the stable atmosphere and temperature of the electric kiln reduces the formation of zisha's unique surface texture and that the natural minute fluctuations of other fuel burning kilns is actually beneficial to the formation of Yixing's surface texture. What evidence do we have for this and do you have a causal mechanism to propose to our listeners?

[00:24:56] Pat Penny: Evidence is hard.

I think we, we all have experience and we've discussed it at length already as to why we believe that some of these changes have had a, a negative impact on the teapot tea interaction or at least lessened the impact. Anecdotally we, we believe that and we hold that theory.

I would say, looking at the market, if an electric kiln had an equal or superior outcome to other existing kilns then everybody would theoretically switch to it, right? Because we know that the barrier to entry on cost is low. The output yield is pretty good. Obviously if you're trying to move a ton of teapots, a pushbat still makes sense. But if it was as good or better from a subjective standpoint then why wouldn't everybody be doing it? It's a little bit of a why not argument, but. 

[00:25:43] Jason Cohen: So your claim is we have anecdata, right? We have our experiences and our experiences all align and our experience point us to that in direction. But I think, I think we can draw greater conclusions than that, can't we? What do you think Zongjun?

[00:25:56] Zongjun Li: It is really hard to find evidence and also people double fire their teapot in other kiln type just to have a more interesting effect on the surface. If a teapot is fired straight from electric kiln, those options wouldn't make any sense.

[00:26:11] Jason Cohen: Yeah, we have wuhui teapots, right? Wuhui I think is evidence of this theory. 

[00:26:17] Zongjun Li: Well, the sole reason why wuhui exists is because of the fine tuning of atmosphere and that can be done with other mechanism except combustion.

[00:26:27] Jason Cohen: But to the point of the theory is that wuhui happens in a variety of different kiln types. And that it obviously changes the surface texture. We can feel the difference in the surface texture, and it has an obviously different impact on tea no matter what clay type or ore type it started from. Can we not use that as observed evidence that surface texture has a role or is, is there too many confounding factors for you to consider that evidence?

[00:26:53] Pat Penny: I think this goes tangential from what you were saying, but we have such a fine degree of control in an electric kiln. As Zongjun was discussing, there's innovation around introducing different atmospheric controls to electric kilns. Really, one of the major differences that we, I think see beyond the atmospheric conditions of combustible kilns, is the time temperature curve, right? And with finer and finer degrees of control, I think we would be able to over time achieve the kind of temperature fluctuation that we see in kilns that need some kind of fuel source, right? Have a fuel addition. And if we believe that those yield a pot with a superior texture or that achieves a superior interaction, do we feel like in the next decade or decades we are gonna achieve electric kiln firing that actually mimics the positive properties that we believe we're getting from other kiln types?

[00:27:46] Jason Cohen: You're giving me the absolute worst idea for the next commission. We're gonna do a sinusoidal heat progression. So we're gonna, we're gonna do the standard heat progression, but we're gonna add a sinusoidal variance throughout it to, to create micro fluctuations.

[00:28:01] Pat Penny: What's the control gonna be? A standard electric fired or double fired. What do you think makes the most sense? 

[00:28:07] Jason Cohen: Single fired. Single fired. Great. 

[00:28:09] Pat Penny: Because we still wanna use it. 

You asked us earlier about contemporary innovation. Where are you seeing, with mix of different technology developments in China, technology developments within the Yixing industry? And maybe just what you're kind of seeing from a macro level how maybe the arts or art products are moving in, in our time. Where do you kind of see the next stage of innovation, major innovation in Yixing being? 

[00:28:34] Jason Cohen: Ooh, that's a great and difficult question. I, on one side, I think that there is real innovation happening. You know, we talked about the lengthening firing times. One of the things we didn't talk about that we write in the chapter is that Yixing artisans are now putting Yixing teapots in saggers inside electric kilns. And this is wild, if you think about it. The electric kilns have no ash. They have no dust, right? The, it's totally clean firing. Why would you put, put the teapot in the saggar? And it's actually because the saggar acts as a heat dampener. It actually does almost exactly what we were talking about with creating these micro fluctuations in heat. And so by dampening the rate of change even within an electric kiln, which you can already control the rate of change, Yixing artisans are finding that the surface texture is more developed, it's less shiny, and it has less of a gloss and more of an inner glow. A diffuse glow which are all signs of additional texture creation.

On, on the micro level, on the techniques that are already being done, I think that there's a lot of that. I think the future of Yixing, a lot of the future innovation in Yixing is the revival of prior arts. We saw it a little bit while we were there. We discussed it a little bit and my opinion on this throughout the writing of the book has really shifted where I was a hundred percent on the literati scholar teapot should be absolutely playing no adornments, no crazy shapes, and now, now, I, I love my heart sutra (巨轮珠) julunzhu. I love some of these more interesting painted Yixing wares that, that have an overglaze painting on it. I love the return of contemporary calligraphy and inscription and landscape on Yixing.

Actually, you know what, these really are traditional arts that are being revived and now practiced after being totally, almost entirely halted during the, the F1 and early modern period. And, to have this revival of, of something very similar to what we were seeing in late Qing early ROC with these additive art forms where they're using new, new techniques and new technology to revive older practices. I think that that type of a diffusion and that type of integration and that type of reinvigoration of tradition is truly a magnificent time to be part of the, the Yixing community. And it's totally different than the sculptural Yixing works and artificially dyed Yixing works that we see that has taken over a lot of the industry. I think that this competes with that in a way that is beneficial and hearkens to the great parts of the tradition.

[00:31:20] Pat Penny: So I feel like we have seen over the course of studying the history of Yixing going from pre Ming, Ming into Qing, there is always this element of trying to bolster the art piece by tying it to some previous or older significant cultural item, right? And it's the same with tea. We talked about this at length with Lu Yu writing the Cha Jing and bringing in these disparate threads of the Shennong (神农) and other bits here and there. So I, I do agree with you that whatever kind of the next innovation in teapots is, I'm sure it's going to hark back as well as look forward. I think that's an interesting thing that we always see in, in Chinese culture as we approach innovation.

[00:31:59] Zongjun Li: Yeah, a tea gathering has always been the bowling room, referencing your example previously Jason. But it, it, it really has been the bowling room for literati historically, and the teapot being the center of a tea gathering along with the tea inside the teapot naturally becomes the focus of a gathering. And that's usually the best gateway to lure into the host's artistic taste. So, any kind of design or finish or decorations or anything related to the teapot really reflects on what the current state of mind of the host is. And I think that's great. If it's a plain teapot that does the job, great. If it's a tree trunk that reflects the most recent trendy naturalist designed of, of the art trend, that's great too. And especially when it's finished well. As a Gongchun, that's always a pleasure to look at.

[00:32:56] Jason Cohen: Well everyone, that's all the time that we have for today. Thank you all for joining us in this edition of Tea Technique Editorial Conversations. Please join us again for our next conversation, Reduction Firing Wuhui Black Yixing Wares. 

Chapter Discussion Sections:

• 00:00 Introduction 
• 00:22 Overview of Shuttle Kilns 
• 04:56 Use of Shuttle Kilns over Tunnel Kilns 
• 07:06 How to tell a Shuttle Kiln Fired Ware 
• 12:46 Advantages and Flexibility of Shuttle Kilns 

Transcript 

Hello everyone. I'm Jason Cohen, the author of an Introduction to the Art and Science of Chinese Tea Ceremony. Today we're discussing book two, chapter 10, section six, Shuttle Kilns. Here to talk about this chapter is our editorial team, Patrick Penny, 

[00:00:18] Pat Penny: Howdy everyone, 

[00:00:19] Jason Cohen: and Zongjun Li. 

[00:00:21] Zongjun Li: Da jia hao. 

[00:00:22] Jason Cohen: Hello everyone.

This is a short chapter yet I think an interesting one. Shuttle kilns were the first innovation in Yixing production made after privatization, circa of 1990 about. What is a shuttle kiln and what does the reversion to a batch process tell us about the state and economics of the Yixing industry during this time period?

[00:00:45] Zongjun Li: Well, this is almost a proto electric kiln. So you basically have all of these wares sitting on a cart and you roll them into a concealed space, which they will end up getting fired in a chamber. And then you just pull the cart out once they're finished. So, it's a very, simple single batch kind of a firing system that people are using.

This really I guess change the, the mechanism how where it's getting fired versus a tunnel kiln because you don't necessarily need to have the kiln going on continuously for mass production. For these kilns, they're really used by like single artists firing small batch of wares. And then, like, they get sold in their personal studio. So it's a really a good symbol of privatization after the collectivization communist production of wares. 

[00:01:42] Pat Penny: Yeah. Tunnel kilns require, some degree of throughput, I think to be economically feasible. You have to have, I would assume, and this is probably what we saw, a few days worth of material stocked up at any given time such that the kiln is operating nearly 24 7 to really ensure that just fueling it and fueling the labor pays out. And so these shuttle kilns allow you to have, these short bursts of single firings that mean that you don't need to have tons of material on hand, days worth of firing material ready. You can have artists show up, drop off their material, and once you have enough for a batch, you fire in a way that is still economically productive for this either kiln master or the artisan who owns the kiln. 

[00:02:25] Jason Cohen: And so what, what I think we're getting at here, so two, two sides to this. One is what, what the shuttle kiln is, right? The shuttle kiln. The shuttle is a giant rail car, literally rails that slides fully into the kiln. Kiln closes and it burns with natural gas.

But on the other side, I think that this is very interesting, right? We're talking about this reversion to a batch process. And independent artists for the first time firing their own wares. They don't have enough thorough put. They don't have enough money. They don't have enough resources in order to run tunnel kilns. And so now we suddenly see shuttle kiln. So what was the state of the industry then? 1990, are teapots expensive? Could we have been out there buying 10 cent Yixings? What was going on in 1990 in the industry?

[00:03:09] Pat Penny: You have quite a deluge of lower quality teapots that have hit the market between the, the late eighties, the early nineties. You do start to have privatization where you do have some famous collectors who are starting to request private batches of product, which, now with the hindsight of history, we know that maybe those would be a few that we would want to get our hands on. But otherwise, by and large, there's not a lot of 1990s Yixings that people are seeking.

So we know that there was quite a lot of mass produced product that really, I think as like practitioners we're not particularly interested in. So I think this is an interesting pivot where you do start to see probably artisans who were looking to fire something that might have matched previous historical processes that they had heard about or they want start testing and experimenting potentially to develop more interesting or better teapot designs than what they had been trained with for the past few decades. Maybe those who were disinterested in what they had seen in the mass market. I'm sure those would be in the minority though.

[00:04:12] Zongjun Li: Yeah. 1990s marks the starting point, the real starting point of the open up policy and the closure of F1 alongside with a lot of these collectivization factories led to the situation that a lot of these workers getting laid off. So they don't have a job. So, what they end up doing is starting a bunch of these little studios, private family owned run businesses and they don't necessarily have the resources to maintain a larger production anymore. So this is really the situation they end up having, like, they have to continue do the job that they're good at. And shuttle kiln is a perfect substitution of large scale tunnel kiln. 

[00:04:56] Jason Cohen: And yet it is, it is a transient technology, right? Or it's maybe it's not very much a transient technology. We saw shuttle kiln still in use today in Yixing. We were at a shuttle kiln during the 2023 research trip.

Are they considered to be superior? Are they inferior? Particularly, are they inferior versus tunnel kilns? What, what do we think of wares that have been fired in a shuttle kiln? 

[00:05:18] Pat Penny: Artisans that we had met with and worked with fire in both. So, I, I don't really think I got the sense during that trip that one was better than another. I think there was maybe certain purposes for that artisan, that one kiln might be preferred over another, depending on either the material he was working with or maybe even time or cost constraints. 

[00:05:39] Zongjun Li: Yeah. And it seems like the shuttle kiln has a, a slightly larger temperature range than tunnel kiln because of the nature of the two variants of temperature range from both carts. You, you tend to have a large liberty of adjust the temperature for your wares.

And also very interestingly, I, I think that modern days tunnel kiln in Yixing also adopt the mechanism or the business model of shuttle kiln. Like we see a lot of these smaller studios still use tunnel kilns too. And they, they basically go through a similar payment system that they pay a subscription or a single use fee. And then they just have their wares getting laid in these large bat which will get pushed into the tunnel kiln. 

[00:06:28] Jason Cohen: Yeah. My, my take was that the higher temperature wares like zhuni that couldn't be fired in a tunnel kiln get fired in a shuttle kiln.

[00:06:35] Pat Penny: The shuttle kiln that we saw for some reason, my memory, I thought it was electric, but did we see a gas one? 

[00:06:41] Jason Cohen: No, I think that that was a gas shuttle kiln. Or it was retrofit. I was trying to look through that in the notes, but I believe that the photos that, that we have are gas. But I 

[00:06:52] Zongjun Li: I think it's gas because if not, then there won't be really a temperature range. Right? Like from top to bottom.

[00:07:00] Jason Cohen: Yeah. 'cause the heating coils usually span across the sides of the kiln. 

[00:07:05] Zongjun Li: Yeah. 

[00:07:06] Jason Cohen: Are there any telltale signs that indicate a ware was fired in a shuttle kiln?

[00:07:13] Pat Penny: I think it's easier to know if a ware was not fired in a shuttle kiln versus fired in a shuttle kiln. With basically the shielded heating element, you can be pretty sure if you see has anything that might have been touched by ash, right? Or have any kind of kiln transformation, I can be pretty sure it wasn't fired in a shuttle kiln. 

[00:07:30] Jason Cohen: I'm not sure if I could tell if a, a ware it was fired in a shuttle kiln. I think maybe because it doesn't have a saggar if the temperature fluctuations a little bit faster so that maybe the texture is a tiny bit more matte. But I think it's extra hard 'cause I think that a lot of the shuttle kiln wares are still double fired. So they still are either pre-fire electric and then fired in the shuttle, or they're double fired in the shuttle kiln after a zhengkou. So I, I think it's really hard to tell. 

[00:07:58] Zongjun Li: Agree. 

[00:08:02] Jason Cohen: Given that it's so hard to tell Zongjun, do you desire or avoid wares from a shuttle kiln? 

[00:08:09] Zongjun Li: I don't think you could desire or avoid anything coming from a shuttle kiln. First it's so hard to tell. Second, it's so uncharacteristic that it's really hard to form a preference or dis preference towards it. It's a very neutral method of getting your wares finished, so to speak.

[00:08:29] Pat Penny: I think it's one of those things where once we were there in Yixing and experiencing the different environments for these kilns, I, I could appreciate at least what was going on around them. But you know, until I try side by side, a tunnel kiln versus a shuttle kiln, I don't think I can even form an opinion. And I have a feeling that after I try them, I probably still won't have much of an opinion. 

[00:08:56] Jason Cohen: No, I think, I think, if anything I would, my assumptions are that with the double firing and now with all the mixed firing between the electric and the shuttle kilns, I, I, I can't imagine that there's anything super specific that there's any super telltale attribute.

[00:09:13] Pat Penny: I mean, if you're, if you're not working directly with an artisan and able to request a specific firing, you're never gonna know anyway as far as like what's available on the market at large, there's gonna be no way to tell that it's shuttle kiln versus any other kiln. 

[00:09:28] Jason Cohen: Yeah. Although, I guess, I guess we should say for contemporary wuhui, we shouldn't be so sure that there's absolutely no yaobian or kiln effects because you could put a saggar filled with hay or other combustibles into the shuttle kiln that would likely, I do believe that there's a shuttle kiln fired wuhui which because of the presence of the ash inside the saggar can leave some kiln effects of just,

[00:09:54] Pat Penny: Yeah. 

[00:09:54] Jason Cohen: Occurred to me that we should clarify that. 

[00:09:56] Pat Penny: That's a good point. That's a good point. So I guess, without the addition of anything, it normally is a clean burning kiln and wouldn't have any kind of kiln effects, but certainly artisans can artistically choose to, to do that by adding material that's combustible.

[00:10:11] Zongjun Li: Yeah. 

[00:10:11] Jason Cohen: I guess that's another difference with a tunnel kiln, right? You absolutely cannot do yaobian in a tunnel kiln. The rate of firing is too fast and you won't get the full desired effect. So shuttle kiln, you can of course time the firing and you can keep it going for as long or as short as you want, and you can even time the time temperature curves which they do. I guess that's, that's an interesting difference. It was almost strange in a way, being there at this shuttle kiln, which is a type of kiln type that we haven't really heard much about. We didn't read much about in advance going. We, okay, here we are at another kiln. We had just been at the tunnel kiln, which is gigantic and, and an important component. And people talk about it a lot. And we get to the shuttle kiln, much, much smaller, orders of magnitude smaller and there wasn't a lot going on. It's two gigantic stacks. 

[00:11:00] Pat Penny: I didn't even know what we were doing there. It took a few seconds for me to realize there was two kilns there.

[00:11:07] Jason Cohen: Yeah. 'Cause it's not blazing hot. You're not getting a sweat bath. The kilns turn on and off. It's fully batch processed. You show up, drop your wares on a rack. You, you arrange it as you want. You pay the guy, you walk and he tells you when to come back. And that, that's it. You're not, you're not really babysitting anything. 

[00:11:25] Zongjun Li: Yeah, very small business. 

[00:11:28] Pat Penny: Yeah. It didn't quite have the entire community around it that the tunnel kiln did too which understandably, because so many wares are going through that tunnel kiln ecosystem as we could call it. Whereas this was really, I feel like we entered a few couple like doors. We went under a few overhanging roofs, and then here we were in this small kiln area with like, I don't know, maybe four other people were there. 

[00:11:50] Zongjun Li: Yeah. So really your neighborhood Uncle Joe's kiln, like, it's probably just for the community living nearby. 

[00:11:58] Jason Cohen: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to think about because I wonder if we do or would find a difference if we took the same wares and had them fired in a tunnel kiln versus a shuttle kiln versus an electric kiln. All three of the modern kilns. But then on the other hand, I get the idea that the same wares really aren't fired that way. Right? That, that our primary contact, who we do the most work with, he tends to only fire the zhuni and much higher fired ware, some of the luni wares in the shuttle kiln and everything else goes through the tunnel kiln. I guess the cost per piece is much lower in a, in the tunnel kiln.

[00:12:37] Pat Penny: Yeah, I'm, I'm sure economic factors play a, a larger part in it than we realize, as outside users of the ware versus crafters of the ware.

[00:12:46] Jason Cohen: I guess my last question, given all of this, are there any advantages to the shuttle kiln? We talked about it being slightly more expensive, marginally more expensive per piece than the tunnel kiln, we talked about that it's, it's a bit lacking in any distinction. So if, if this is the case, other than it gets hotter, which some other films can do, right? You can go back to potentially one of the few wood fired kilns. You could go to an electric kiln. Why are artisans using a shuttle kiln? Why were shuttle kilns brought to Yixing? Why are they used? Why are they still used? 

[00:13:18] Zongjun Li: My suspicion is that this is really a, a good way to do experiment, to experiment how your clay and your wares perform in different temperature in a more economic way. 'Cause like electric kiln, it's electric, right? Like the wares aren't really necessarily touching any flame by the end of the day. And for shuttle kilns, it is a burning environment and you have a relatively larger temperature range. And it's pretty efficient for you to discover what's the most optimal temperature for the specific type of clay that you end up having for making it wares. And once you find out that temperature range, maybe you can batch fire them in a tunnel kiln in the future. But I think this is a good method to discover that range in, in a relatively quicker way. 

[00:14:08] Pat Penny: Yeah, I think you can tell all of our background in like food and like CPG 'cause we're all like, oh, it's kinda like a pilot system.

[00:14:15] Zongjun Li: Yeah! 

[00:14:15] Pat Penny: Because truly, if you're gonna do a hundred teapots in a tunnel kiln, you wanna make sure that you know the correct placement in the kiln based on temperature and time. And much better to find that out with five pots in a shuttle kiln than to try on your first run with a hundred in a tunnel kiln.

[00:14:32] Jason Cohen: I think that that's right. I, I also think that the idea that, you know, this versus an electric kiln, the electric kilns are generally slightly reductive. They seal pretty tight. And the shuttle kilns are still slightly oxidizing, which is generally better fit with the burning fuel and for interaction with the clay.

I think one of the other reasons is, is because of the flexibility which we were, we were sort of getting at with the ranges of temperatures and everything. But not just that, but the, the shuttle itself is super flexible. It's just a rail car and you can put giant pieces on it. You can put small pieces on it, you can arrange a shuttle to, to fire irregularly sized, regularly shaped things that couldn't fit, wouldn't fit into a tunnel kiln or that would have too much of a temperature gradient across the tunnel kiln. So I think, I think some of that early flexibility, 'cause we should, we should also remember, 1990s when these things were adopted, the, yes, Yixing was still firing teapots. Some of the teapots were less, less stellar than what we, as practitioners are interested in. But a non negligible portion of the business is shipping bonsai pots to Japan and flower pots around, around the world. And so an irregularly sized variable sized flower pots that you could fire quite easily, I think is also a driver of the shuttle kilns.

Well, everyone, that's all the time that we have for today. Not really. We actually have a lot more time scheduled out, it's a two page, two page chapter. We are, we are through, we are through questions before time runs out. So, 

[00:16:08] Zongjun Li: We wished we can talk more about shuttle kilns, but it's, it's really simple.

[00:16:15] Jason Cohen: There's not much more to say or ask. 

[00:16:17] Pat Penny: If you saw the chapter, you'd be surprised that we were able to talk this much about it. 

[00:16:21] Jason Cohen: Yeah. Well after, after the 30 page chapter and the 20 page chapter back to back, this was a refreshing...

Well everyone, thank you again for joining us in this edition of Tea Technique Editorial Conversations. Please join us again for our next conversation on electric kilns. 

• 00:00 Introduction
• 08:37 What Are You Drinking?
• 13:42 Changes in Recent Brewing Practices
• 19:31 Different Tea Cultures
• 25:06 Rebuilding Tea Institute
• 33:12 Hosting Public Tea Events
• 37:28 Navigating Disagreements in Tea Knowledge
• 46:29 Memorable Tea Experiences
• 52:43 Reference Teas and Sensory Memory
• 01:02:18 The Value of Wuyi Yancha
• 01:08:53 Vendor Claims
• 01:13:31 Field Notes to Actual Writing Workflow

A full transcript is included on the episode page and below:

[00:00:05] Jason Cohen: Awesome. Well, thank you everyone for joining us in this edition of Tea Technique Editorial Conversations. We're doing in AMA, of course, with our editor Pat Penny. 

[00:00:17] Pat Penny: Hey, hey! 

[00:00:19] Jason Cohen: And a dear friend Max Falkowitz from Leafhopper. Hey, Max. 

[00:00:23] Max Falkowitz: Hi everybody. 

[00:00:24] Jason Cohen: So this is Max's first AMA with us. So he is about to get a very special treatment, something that he's totally unprepared for.

[00:00:35] Pat Penny: Max, just like mute, mute your speakers now. It's just, just mute the speakers now. 

[00:00:41] Max Falkowitz: Yeah, I wanna see like what particular cult you've created in this digital space. 

[00:00:45] Pat Penny: Oh, it's a strange one. 

[00:00:47] Jason Cohen: Yes. Well, this I believe is the first ever shou puer disc track. And 

[00:00:57] Pat Penny: The world's not ready for a good reason.

[00:00:59] Jason Cohen: Yep. And, I'm excited for it. Let's see. See if I can do this with just the sound is what I'm trying to do. 

[00:01:10] Pat Penny: When you went to share your screen, I, I assumed it was gonna be the world's first shou puer disc track music video is what I thought was gonna happen. 

[00:01:18] Jason Cohen: Yeah, yeah. Shou puer disc track music video. Wouldn't that be something? 

[00:01:22] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. Like girls in thongs on big piles, like in the warehouse. 

[00:01:26] Pat Penny: Just shou cakes. Just like falling down the shelves. 

[00:01:29] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:01:31] Jason Cohen: There we go. Okay. Here we go. Let me know what you guys think. 

[00:04:10] Pat Penny: So Max, this is just how we naturally drop the engagement on the post is like people listen to the first three minutes and then we just see the drop off rate is just a little precipitous. 

[00:04:21] Max Falkowitz: When does the, when does the collaboration with Awkwafina come for this? 

[00:04:26] Pat Penny: Make it real New York? 

[00:04:27] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. That, wow. What, what does the story behind this? How did this come about? 

[00:04:33] Jason Cohen: Just started messing around with this. And now for the AMAs, we usually play a song at the beginning. 

[00:04:38] Max Falkowitz: That, beautiful. Love it. Great. 

[00:04:40] Pat Penny: They've only gotten better actually. So, Max, you, now is the best version of this. 

[00:04:45] Max Falkowitz: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:46] Pat Penny: It's only been worse in the past, 

[00:04:47] Max Falkowitz: which means in the future they will only get better. 

[00:04:49] Pat Penny: True, true. 

[00:04:50] Jason Cohen: We hope. We hope. 

[00:04:51] Max Falkowitz: Invest now for great returns. 

[00:04:55] Jason Cohen: What did, what did you think Pat?

[00:04:57] Pat Penny: I mean, it, it's, it's the best one you've done to date. But, I'd love to get Max's thoughts on uh, AI music, AI generation, AI for tea related things. I'm sure you've got a nice nuanced take on that one. 

[00:05:09] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. It it, it's, it's, it's rare to have something that is an existential threat to your work and your livelihood. And also an environmental disaster and an unregulated, rogue state project that fills you with dread every day. So for one technology to really combine all of those attributes together, those boys are working hard.

[00:05:33] Pat Penny: Yeah. Jason, way to start off light with that. 

[00:05:38] Max Falkowitz: I'm gonna get my kettle, one second. 

[00:05:39] Jason Cohen: As I 

[00:05:40] Max Falkowitz: Good call. 

[00:05:40] Jason Cohen: As I make my AI music and run an AI company. 

[00:05:44] Pat Penny: Your AI company. 

[00:05:45] Jason Cohen: Yeah.

[00:05:50] Pat Penny: Using, using at least three water bottles worth of water to make a song about bad shou cha. 

[00:05:57] Jason Cohen: Well, I was inspired by of course our recent conversations, Pat. After the Yiwu trip where we were listening to Pan-African jazz funk, I progressed from there to British Dub, particularly Party Dub. 

[00:06:14] Pat Penny: I'm, I'm still on the Pan-African jazz funk. I, I really enjoyed that. I've got a few albums downloaded now for just plain listening, all that kinda stuff. 

[00:06:22] Jason Cohen: What music have you been listening to recently, Max? 

[00:06:26] Max Falkowitz: This is a really cringe answer, but in addition to the Hans Zimmer soundtrack for Dune, the film.

[00:06:33] Pat Penny: Yes. 

[00:06:34] Max Falkowitz: And I'm very Dune pilled. My dog is named after Frank Herbert. His name is Frank Herbert. And there is an additional album called the Dune Sketchbook, which is where he just kind of gets extra weird and funky with it. And that, while walking my dog and riding on the subway is like, you are so Bene Gesserit maxing while listening to that. It's beautiful. 

[00:06:59] Pat Penny: I, I only made it to book four. I don't know how far, how far you've gone in this. 

[00:07:04] Max Falkowitz: I, I haven't, I haven't gone past book three. I need to sit down and do the 

[00:07:09] Pat Penny: You don't, you don't, you don't need to, you don't need to 

[00:07:11] Jason Cohen: Just stop there. 

[00:07:11] Max Falkowitz: You, you missed the sex nuns. You, you missed the, the nuns who, who turned sex into a narcotic.

[00:07:18] Pat Penny: I, I feel like I missed nothing. I really feel like I missed nothing. 

[00:07:20] Max Falkowitz: Scare dogs. You've missed the, the survival of Judaism, more or less unchanged for over 10,000 years, which pops up at the end of the last book, I'm told. Yeah. I don't, I, I, I, yeah, I need to dig into, I I, 

[00:07:34] Pat Penny: That, that I do feel like I missed and, and it is actually a question that I had coming into this podcast. So why, so I, I'm Jewish. It's not obvious, but why are all these Hebrews, He, He Bros into brewing Chinese tea? I, I don't, I don't understand it, but it's like a thing like across the tea world. 

[00:07:51] Max Falkowitz: Really? The Jews, the Jews are, are interested in tea. 

[00:07:54] Pat Penny: The Jews are into Chinese tea. Yeah.

[00:07:56] Max Falkowitz: Interesting. I mean, there, there's, there's, maybe this is an extension of the great affinity that Jewish and Chinese cultures have for each other. I think there's a reason that we get along so well, so often. And I don't know. I feel like anything else I say could be very cancelable, but I'm mean I'm gonna leave it there.

[00:08:18] Pat Penny: Probably a good idea. Probably a good idea. 

[00:08:21] Jason Cohen: I think tea requires the same type of Talmudic study that few topics do. 

[00:08:27] Pat Penny: At, at least the way that you've approached it. That's for sure. 

[00:08:32] Jason Cohen: Well, Pat, why don't you kick us off in our standard opening question. What are you drinking? 

[00:08:39] Pat Penny: Oh, well, you asked the question but yeah, what, what am I drinking? So I'm, I'm still at work right now, actually. I very luckily just kind of got outta my last meeting to make it here on time, so happy to be with you guys. And I am drinking just a, a nice glass, actually a, a branded glass. This is an audio medium, but I've got my nice branded glass for all you listeners.

And I just have a ton of San Jia Zhai (三家寨) sheng puer just floating in here. So it's some nice Yiwu puer 'cause we went to Yiwu this year. I think we're probably just gonna keep talking about Yiwu until we go somewhere else next year. 

[00:09:13] Jason Cohen: Yeah. We're still gonna talk about Yiwu.

[00:09:15] Pat Penny: Yeah. Jason, I kick it to you. What are you drinking? 

[00:09:17] Jason Cohen: What am I drinking? I am drinking a Yixing red tea. Really just to throw it back on the internet Debbie Downer group that says, oh, Yixing, they don't like tea. They just drink the local red tea. Well, here I have an example of an excellent version of the local red tea made by a real charan and Yixing maker.

And I am pairing that with a nice glass of Cardenal Mendoza Gran Solera Reserva Spanish Brandy. 

[00:09:44] Pat Penny: Jason's standard, accessible and approachable answer. Max? 

[00:09:50] Max Falkowitz: Beautiful.

Well, I'm recovering from a bout of sake education that happened last night, which is a great way of disguising, drinking too much. So I'm keeping it mellow with some competition, allegedly Dong Ding that I have been drinking out of this, I, I don't think the camera is recognizing how large this mug is. This was a recent unearthed find from my great aunt who I think somewhere between the sixties and seventies must have taken a trip to Mexico and brought back a lot of pottery that probably has lead in the glaze. And this has been my new lock in tea mug. And so the hope is that if this is a competition ish grade tea, that it can handle just being like sitting in here for an hour and a half, which so far it's been doing well. 

[00:10:41] Pat Penny: The lead is just a little extra seasoning. So did you have a little too much like Muroka Nama Genshu, you know, what, what kind of sake were you having last night?

[00:10:49] Max Falkowitz: Oh gosh. There was, there was a lightly pasteurized one, aged for two years that was not proof down, that had these really nice like maple sap kind of flavors to it. And another that was, like all sake vocabulary goes in one ear and out the other for me. So I, I, I'm, I'm gonna not even attempt to try and describe what they were, but 

[00:11:12] Pat Penny: I'm taking, I'm taking notes and I'm grading what you say.

[00:11:15] Max Falkowitz: Good, good. Please grade me harder, Daddy. I, the, and then we, we had another one that was, it, it was like ripe and lush to the point of having that like tropical garbage kind of flavor like jackfruit that's turned a little and 

[00:11:29] Jason Cohen: Unfiltered? 

[00:11:30] Max Falkowitz: No, it was, it was clear. But I think also unpasteurized and from a producer that makes their own koji, which I'm told is very uncommon. And it was beautiful. Like I, once you get past like the garlic, like it was, it was so many different things and like the language we're talking about it, I think was much more, like tea language was much more useful for me in talking about it than wine language. 

[00:11:58] Pat Penny: Yeah. This, this time of year for sake, there's a type of sake called hiyaoroshi, which is basically either single pasteurization or then sounds like you had a lot of nama, which is the non-pasteurized. But this time of year is so popular for sake. So you're making me think that this weekend I've gotta go do the same. A little bit of sake education sounds like a good idea. 

[00:12:16] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. Yeah. I highly, highly recommend. A tea friend of mine named Jenny Eagleton has gone very deep down the sake rabbit hole and is doing trainings and education about it. And so we have a good tea for sake samples and educational exchange. 

[00:12:33] Pat Penny: I need those kind of friends. That's really what I feel like I'm missing over here in Seattle.

[00:12:37] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. I also recommend getting a cheese rabbi if you can, and then getting him hooked on tea 'cause then you definitely win the value proposition of that. 'Cause there's only like, you can give them a 10 gram sample of tea and they're thrilled and you get back like a half pound wheel of cheese and

[00:12:53] Pat Penny: Fair trade. Fair trade. Jason and I had a beer rabbi in college. So how different is a cheese rabbi and a beer rabbi, you think? 

[00:13:00] Max Falkowitz: If like a few things happened differently in his life, he would totally be a craft beer guy. So I think basically same person. 

[00:13:07] Jason Cohen: Yeah. He probably went through the phase. Everyone went through the, it's a, 

[00:13:10] Pat Penny: Yeah, 

[00:13:11] Jason Cohen: It's an up and down thing. 

[00:13:12] Pat Penny: We're all drinking lagers now, right? Like just Coors Light across the board. 

[00:13:15] Jason Cohen: Early twenties. I'm not even drinking beer anymore. I'm on, I'm on pure spirits now. 

[00:13:22] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. I, I, I, I'm, I, what I want is I want four ounces of beer and then that is enough beer for me. Unless I'm like pounding a Guinness after a really shitty day, but like four ounces of a good sour is like perfect. And then get me some pickles. 

[00:13:39] Pat Penny: Pickles all the way. Yeah. A, a little taster is all I need anymore. So this is a pretty Tea Technique AMA standard, we're like 20 minutes into the conversation. We haven't addressed a audience comment yet at all. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna shift gears a little bit and we're gonna address some questions that we got submitted. So, Jason, you sent me a few that I think we got through email. We had a few through Insta. I think, just an apology to listeners. I think we were a little late on posting this time, so, if you had questions that didn't get send to us, just send them, we'll get 'em into the next AMA.

All right, I'm gonna look over. Well this is one that we kind of end up addressing a lot anyway, so this is an easy one, but, Jason, recent changes to your brewing practice or biggest changes. We kind of address this every time we come back from like a trip. But Max, I'd love to hear from you as well since maybe you don't have the same kind of like trip cadence that we have. What's something that's changed in your brewing practice of late?

[00:14:36] Max Falkowitz: That's a good question and one that I expect to be able to answer differently in a few weeks. I'm heading to Japan on a very quickie junket to visit some producers doing a story about the matcha shortage because of course, but I've never gotten to see production and like tea agriculture at scale in Japan. So that's really what I'm hoping to get outta the trip. And basically I'm hoping to get corrected by a lot of people about, about how I'm brewing Japanese tea wrong. The trip is all gonna be in Fukuoka, so I don't think I'll be able to get to Kyoto on this trip.

[00:15:11] Pat Penny: Yeah. Probably doing all Yame area tea or something like that. Yep. 

[00:15:14] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. The importer has a relationship with Yame and so it's, but I think it's, it's so great on, on any kind of exploratory trip to just focus on something deep, even if you have to come back later and visit a bunch else. Just like build a memorable experience for yourself where you get to investigate the culture a little more deeply rather than trying to get a little bit of everything. And I think it just always works to dig in deeper instead. 

[00:15:42] Pat Penny: Fukuoka has amazing food culture too, so I think you're gonna be in for a treat. Like, I don't know if you're gonna Fukuoka City proper, but it's actually a really cool city. 

[00:15:50] Max Falkowitz: I'll definitely gonna hit you up for recommendations about, about that.

Then changes to my brewing practice more generally have actually come out of conversations with Jason when we were discussing tetsubin versus clay pot brewing. I have a clay kettle and I have a tetsubin and my use of them tends to be pretty seasonal, like fall and winter. The tetsubin just feels more cozy. And then the clay kettle is lighter and feels more like what I want to use in spring and summer. And I tend to drink most of my roasted tea in the fall and the winter. But I have been switching to clay kettle for a lot more yancha and I need to do some side by side comparisons, but I'm intrigued to play around with that some more.

[00:16:31] Jason Cohen: That's awesome. 

[00:16:31] Pat Penny: You, you and I are still on the same page with the tetsubin 'cause I actually just two weeks ago, literally dusted my tetsubin off. 'Cause I had not used it probably since the late spring maybe. Just not at all during the summer. And as I put it on the hot plate, I could actually smell the dust burning off. But now we're firmly into like tetsubin season for me. But it was all, all clay pot for me for a while. Jason, you look like you had something you wanna say about the Japan comments. 

[00:16:56] Jason Cohen: Oh, just this, I thought the sake is a great preparation for, for Japan, but yeah, you'll, you'll have time. And one of our amazing guests and listeners is based in Kyoto area. So he, he put into the chat if you're coming to Kyoto. Reach out. I'll connect you guys. 

[00:17:13] Max Falkowitz: Yeah, I, I don't think I'm gonna be able to do it on this trip. And that makes two trips to Japan where I have not been able to visit Kyoto. And so third time's really gonna have to be the charm. And I think it's gonna have to be like a big, long, like tea exploration time. 

[00:17:27] Pat Penny: Yeah, your, your brewing practices are definitely gonna change when you come back. I, I go to Japan like almost every summer and I basically end up drinking like green tea for like a month straight after that. And, and then exclusively do no green tea the rest of the year, but just one full month of gyo kuro nonstop.

[00:17:43] Jason Cohen: But Pat, you stopped buying Chinese greens the last two, three seasons? 

[00:17:48] Pat Penny: Just this past season. So the previous season I actually bought your excess greens. But yeah, I, I just had too much and it ended up sitting around for too long, so I am just giving myself a little break. Next, this, this coming season, I'll definitely be buying some Chinese greens. 

[00:18:03] Jason Cohen: Okay. Well you'll just go in with me on the annual Longjing order. 

[00:18:06] Pat Penny: Sounds good. 

[00:18:07] Jason Cohen: I drink one month of green tea every year. I buy my top grade Longjing for reasons that are non-monetary. You gotta, gotta keep up the access. And I do enjoy it for a full year and then I, that's it, that's, that's what I drink. 

[00:18:25] Max Falkowitz: So yeah. What, what does the investment cost of maintaining this relationship cost to you, like per session of actually wanting to reach out for Longjing? 

[00:18:35] Jason Cohen: What does, what was it last year, Pat? $2.25 a gram? 

[00:18:39] Pat Penny: Yeah, that sounds right. I, I got 25 grams I think and it was like 70 bucks, so, yeah. 

[00:18:44] Jason Cohen: Yeah. It's like between $2 and $3 a gram depending on the season. And also depends if I can get in on the OG Cultivar, Cultivar 43? I always get the number wrong. 

[00:18:54] Pat Penny: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:18:56] Jason Cohen: I normally miss the early season cultivar 'cause obviously, I'm not in China during Longing season, so, I normally wind up with the 43, but I, I don't really mind that that much. 

[00:19:08] Pat Penny: Yeah, I do like the Qunti. When I was in Hangzhou pre-Qing ming, that was one of the only times I had tried kind of the landrace variety. And yeah, it, it was very interesting. I mean, I didn't really bring much back home, which was probably a good call 'cause it would've eventually just oxidized 'cause I don't drink greens fast enough. But it's the only time I think I had, it was when I was in Hangzhou.

Okay. I've got another one. So what's an aspect of tea culture that you personally don't participate in, but respect others doing? This is a cool one. 

[00:19:38] Jason Cohen: Bowl tea meditation with Little John.

[00:19:42] Pat Penny: You mean Little John's specific meditation album, right? 

[00:19:45] Jason Cohen: I do mean bowl tea meditation with Little John and his meditation album or bowl tea. 

[00:19:51] Pat Penny: Yeah. You're not, you're not doing like a party rock, L-M-F-A-O type of situation? 

[00:19:55] Jason Cohen: No, no. Just the actual meditation album. 

[00:19:59] Pat Penny: Yeah. Who, who do you know that's doing this? 

[00:20:02] Jason Cohen: I can't say. 

[00:20:03] Pat Penny: I think you're talking about yourself.

[00:20:06] Jason Cohen: No. This is what, this is what I don't participate in. 

[00:20:09] Pat Penny: Yeah. 

[00:20:09] Jason Cohen: I respect. 

[00:20:10] Pat Penny: Max, do you have an aspect of tea culture that you kind of respect but don't, don't really do? 

[00:20:14] Max Falkowitz: Discord. Love it for everyone, but it is such an overstimulating environment and, and I, I struggle to keep track of conversations over any length of time. I think a lot about like the archives and architecture of content on the internet and how, on the one hand, moving to private spaces like these is kind of a necessity of the surveillance system that we live in now. But none of it gets archived and none of it is, is obtainable for future generations of people that want to learn. And so it just, it kind of feels like you're just burning through stuff and you're burning through people. And I don't know, and I know that in like gaming communities, Discord is huge and live streams are huge. But it, it has made me feel distinctly too old to understand how to engage with those platforms.

[00:21:05] Jason Cohen: It's, it's not even too old. I mean, I'll piggy, piggyback on that. I'm serious about the bowl tea. It's one aspect that I totally appreciate. We used to do more of in Institute days. We used to do the guided bowl tea meditation sessions pre little John and just never kept up with it. So deeply appreciated that and like the boiled tea.

But I think your answer is much more interesting than my answer because I think that the Discord channels incentivize this idea of asynchronous real time communication, kind of like Slack, except it's not a curated conversation. So you just get this constant barrage of people coming in, which creates the eternal September problem, right? Everyone's a new freshman on the university channel kind of situation where everyone's asking, rate this, suggest this, I'm looking for X. And so without that type of curated conversation, and with that kind of async choppy real time short snippet of text, it becomes both very difficult to search and to follow a trend of a thread of a conversation where there's multiple conversations interspersed and it makes it, even if you did have search access to the Discord, it makes it basically unsearchable. And so I, one of the reasons I don't partake in it is because I think that the values is in the long form content and the long form content isn't there. 

[00:22:26] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. There's something to be said for, for unfettered access to personalities and intellects that you want to follow, but you learn quickly why people need editors and, and, and, and why unfettered access doesn't always produce good, good results.

I think there's also, and I, I think this is more of a linguistic trend that's emerged through Discord and other forums, is the very heavy reliance on acronyms for brands and regions and producers. It is, it, it's really it's, it's really alienating to someone who, who is not, even if they're familiar with tea, just not familiar with that ecosystem. And some Discord, some servers I've seen have glossaries for them, but then you're searching through something else and that pulls you out of the conversation. I also don't understand how you navigate Discord without tabbed browsing, but that's a separate issue.

And I don't know, I think as, as we think about how do we communicate about tea, both in public and private and semi-private, and, and we want to, to spread the hospitality of tea culture. How do we, how do we allow ourselves to use shorthand without making it seem like we're all speaking in chits?

[00:23:35] Pat Penny: Yeah. I, I, I think when Tea Discord became a bigger thing, tried to kind of ride the bandwagon and I think I kept up with it for about a month and just found that I felt like I was putting a lot in and really felt like I was getting nothing out of it. And I don't know if it's where I was right in my tea journey. I'm sure for the freshman, Jason, kind of as you said, that it's, it's probably more immediately helpful or could potentially be hurtful as well, depending on what kind of things they pick up. But, I basically just check it now, like once a year to see what kind of shit talk people are doing on Tea Technique. I'm basically not able to find anything via search, as has been mentioned here. And then I never look again for like another year and a year later I go, oh, did anyone talk shit on anything we're doing? And then I can't find anything. Yeah. And that's how it's gone. 

[00:24:22] Jason Cohen: Did they? We don't know. 

[00:24:23] Pat Penny: Usually, I can't find anything. It is, it's once again, the issue is I find nothing. 

[00:24:27] Jason Cohen: Oh. 

[00:24:29] Pat Penny: Except when I search Jason Cohen and then I find a lot. 

[00:24:32] Jason Cohen: Yeah. Everyone's completely 

[00:24:33] Pat Penny: Unrelated to Tea Technique. 

[00:24:35] Jason Cohen: Everyone's complaining. 

[00:24:36] Max Falkowitz: Oh yeah. All the, all the, all the AI music albums he's been working on, on the side.

[00:24:38] Jason Cohen: I know, I know.

[00:24:40] Pat Penny: Okay. Let's, let's see, what's the next question I got on here?

Jason, this one I think was to you specifically. If you rebuilt the Tea Institute at Penn State model outside of university, what parts would you keep and what would you change? 

[00:24:53] Jason Cohen: Ooh, that's a really difficult question. So, the way the Institute was organized is we had the, the operational team, right? The exec team that had various marketing, recruitment and other types of tea house management and librarian, those types of, of positions. But then the way that the not yet institute members, the students were taught was through what we called lineages. So you had a lineage head, and a lineage head would take on a certain number of students, and those students would come to the lectures once a week. And then they would do lineage, hands-on educational brewing, the rest of the time. And then they would take the test in order to test into the Institute and unlock a bunch of opportunities.

So it depends how big it is, right? If you, in Chinese tea, you don't really see a lot of schools like that. You don't really see the Japanese iemoto system with the, the head guy and the disciples and everything goes down the chain and who's allowed to teach. And part of that is just the ethos of the, the culture around it. But part of it is also the size. Most people are learning from singular teachers and they're picking up all of their good and bad habits and their sourcing and their preferences.

And so I think one of the things, and, and I didn't have an appreciation of this until later, but one of the things that was really interesting about the Institute was having those lineage heads who had some different ideas or different preferences or created debate amongst different groups of teachers within the same school with all following kind of the same track. And they, they did a great job of setting up some really fun and interesting environments where it was very competitive, where you'd have people from different lineages doing brew battles, brewing the same tea, and everyone tasting their tea and critiquing. 

And so how much of that is possible to, to recreate outside of a university system? That's really hard to say, right? If, if you have a small group, like take the talk taste triage group, which max 6, 7, 8 people show up. I can't fit more in my tiny Manhattan tea room. If they show up, I can either, it could be an open, easygoing conversation or sometimes people request specific lessons. So the one that we held last night was on Menghai tea, and I actually focused it around the areas of Bulang and the flavors between xiaoshu and gushu Bulang and related region tea. And that's easy to do as a one-off prior experience and all that depends who your teachers are.

Easy to do for me as a one-off and bring people in and, and get them to a level of understanding and, okay, here's what we should be looking for, right? So we were tasting each tea blind and saying, do you think it's gushu? Do you think it's xiaoshu? Where, how, what, what do you think of this tea? And by the end, everyone was basically getting it right, and it was amazing. It was a wonderful lesson. Is there a way to scale that? Is there a way to do that in a constructive lineage setting? I don't know. I don't really focus, as a detriment to myself, I don't really focus on beginner education anymore. I've left that to other people that are much friendlier than I am. And it, it's a personal fault, freely admit it. My, my focus is, is, is like, how do you take people that already know how to brew and are already drinking and already sourcing and tasting, and how do you drive them to get to this next level? How do you progress the praxis at, at, at, at the vanguard of, of this art form? And so thinking through, how do you get beginners trained to be good brewers and good tasters? I haven't been in that world for such a long time, but I don't know what's possible to do outside of a university environment and you were there, pat. I don't, so I don't, you can respond to, to, to that. 

[00:28:34] Pat Penny: It, it's just so localized, right? It's so hard if you don't have a place to center around. We had, we had the Tea Institute, right? And the building and the room that we would gather in. And, it really that that gathering point became a third place. It was just somewhere we all kind of congregated whether or not there was a, a lecture scheduled or whether or not there was brewing practice scheduled. There's just such an open door of people coming in and out and congregating and learning about tea that I think without having that space, it's, it's very difficult to replicate or even do something similar from an educational standpoint without that that space existing first, like your living room or the room that you're in right now, Jason, can't really become that space 'cause it's a private, semi-private space, right? Like it's your apartment. So I don't know how we, whether you want to or not, like how you would go about having a public space that does education where you're also like paying rent in like a city, like Seattle or New York, and doing it in a way that makes sense, right? That's like educationally driven, not financially driven. 

[00:29:37] Jason Cohen: What do, what do you think, Max? You deal with a lot more beginner education than, than we do. 

[00:29:42] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. I'm thinking of, of a fellow named Miles who has been doing this project for the last few years where he's serving free tea to people around the city. He sets up a little folding table in parks or food pantry distribution lines, and then they do other events. And it's all, it's all donation based and it's just about giving people free tea, having conversations with your neighbors, doing the, like, actual work of building community in places using tea as a lubricator for that. And the organization has expanded beyond this, just this one person. There's other people that volunteer, but it behaves in a very classical, classical like anarchist type of environment where there's no centralized authority. And there's administration, but the, the shape of the group is formed by the characters of the people that populate it.

And I think there's a lot of potential for non-commercial groups like these in different cities that have some sort of public service component and then also provide ways for people to gather and that allow different people within that community to take different roles of education. And it encourages, it incentivizes the teachers by getting to deepen their own craft. And it incentivizes newcomers by getting a variety of programming from a lot of different people without it having to seem like a, like a cult from one particular weirdo. So I, I'm, I'm really bullish on what they've been doing at that project called the Tea Stand and I hope to see other programs like it elsewhere.

A few years ago, some friends who have various tea companies in or near the city and I did a series of classes that were, they weren't as focused as lineages, but they were like an introduction. And then let's look at Japanese tea. Let's look at Chinese tea, let's look at Indian tea. And different reps from different companies led those different classes. And I did the intro class and then somebody else did one on this and this and this. And we kind of, we, we eventually kind of wrapped up the program because it was hard for us all to maintain with our schedules, and we were mostly doing it as an excuse to go out for dinner and get drunk. So then we just started doing that without the classes. But it was really fun to do and it was really great to see people from different companies express their vision and allow the guests to just kind of pick up what they wanted. So I would love to see more of those types of collaborations between companies, especially ones that have places, like tearooms available that need nighttime programming. Like I feel like there's, there's a lot of useful collaboration there. 

[00:32:36] Jason Cohen: That leads us to another question that we got about, you could find the exact phrasing Pat, but you've, but it was basically about that Max that you've held these pages,

[00:32:46] Pat Penny: I, I have it in front of me, actually. I can read it. So you've run a lot of, this was to you Max, you've run a lot of public events in a way that like Tea Technique does not. And we've attended some of those public talks. Like what have you learned about tea on the tea world from hosting these kind of ticketed events?

[00:33:02] Max Falkowitz: That's a really good question. One is, is how incredibly well-informed people have become. I've been writing about tea for about 10 years now, and people were even knowledgeable then compared to when I was learning about tea. But now there's an amount of sophistication about what gushu means, what organic farming actually is about, what direct trade looks like and how it behaves. That and, and a lot of, of interest in, in spiritual aspects of tea, the chemistry of tea people have gotten very into. So I think the, the, the, the, there is a, a growing group of people that are, that are progressing their praxis through whatever areas they're getting their information from. So that's very inspiring to see.

And it makes my job easier because I feel like as I've matured as a writer about tea, I get to kind of grow up with people who have been growing up with me. So that, that was, that's been my biggest impression from different talks and then otherwise how once you strip away a lot of the language of tea, people get it pretty quickly, like what Jason was describing with discriminating young bush from old bush tea. People can get it pretty quickly. I, I recently did an event with this art nonprofit that was hosting a show with a visual artist who does the, they're kind of like, like light bright installations, but about capitalism, et cetera. It, it's, I'm, I'm describing it poorly, but it was really cool.

And we, we did an exercise where I brought two puers, one very strong and tranquilizing (老曼娥) Lao Man E. And then 30 year aged ripe that was like very loosen and very drinkable and just really nice. And we had people walk around the exhibit and then we had them drink the Lao Man E tea. I led them through a kind of tasting exercise, kind of trying to draw their attention to different parts of their mouth, of their body. And then we had them go through the exhibit again and see how they kind of, how, what, what about the, what about the art changed of their impressions to it. The responses that we got were fascinating. People were really into it. They were picking up on the somatic effects of the tea that were, we were kind of seeding them for, but they were really going, they were describing their sensations in an articulate enough way that it seemed genuine to me. And I, I, I, I, and using this medium of art as, as a kind of focusing lens for looking at tea and vice versa, I was excited about the event going in, but I was, I was very pleased with how it went afterwards and want to try and do more projects like that just to get people to stop having to worry about what words they can articulate and more develop an intuition for what you're feeling and drinking.

[00:35:46] Pat Penny: I don't think I ever go to a museum and see art without having tea. I feel like now I need to do the opposite, go with no stimulus to like see an art exhibit and then see how do I feel differently about it after then coming back with stimulus. I feel like I've always got like a thermos with me and I'm just like chugging tea as I'm looking at art.

[00:36:04] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. I had an English teacher in high school who recommended that we read this one book every 10 years of our life to see how we relate to it differently as we progress. And I haven't taken a bump on it, but thinking about it, I think about that book and does different aspects of it hit differently as I get older. I think like more occasions to have a regular interaction with something where you were in different states could be really fun. 

[00:36:30] Pat Penny: Yeah, I mean, it's very much the same for tea itself, right? Like, I mean, the way you approach it in your mindset every day is gonna affect how that tea tastes. So I think taking that instead and applying it to some other stimulus is really, really cool. Now I kind of wanna go to the Seattle Art Museum and just try a couple different teas and see how I feel. 

[00:36:47] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. 

[00:36:48] Pat Penny: All right. We do have some questions that the editorial team actually wrote. So we wrote them with you in mind, Max, but Jason, you obviously you can answer them as well. So some of these are based off the recent tea chat. So sorry to listeners. We're gonna do our own selfish questions first and then we'll come back to yours. In the recent tea chat, Max, you had said that many farmers have very strong opinions and sometimes they're wrong. And Jason, you, you've written about disagreements among tea makers as well. For example, the difference and acceptance of yesheng cultivar in Yiwu which we talked about in multiple podcasts. How do both of you navigate situations where your trusted sources might fundamentally disagree? What's your epistemology for competing claims when you can't simply defer to authority?

[00:37:30] Max Falkowitz: Hmm. 

[00:37:32] Pat Penny: The editorial team put together the easy ones. 

[00:37:34] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. 

[00:37:36] Jason Cohen: The easiest questions for us, Max. 

[00:37:39] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. This is a good question. I can, I can jump in or if you wanted to start off on that one, Jason. 

[00:37:43] Jason Cohen: No, you, you, you can go right ahead. 

[00:37:45] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. I, I treat learning from tea teachers as reporting and journalism. And one of the rules of journalism is that if someone says their mother loves them, you have to go and verify it with their mom. So I, I always maintain a kind of base levels of skepticism just because you, you, you don't, any, any source can misrepresent things in any number of ways intentionally or not.

And it's a mixture of skepticism and just kind of keeping an open mind and seeing where the conversation takes you and like once you start digging around and learning about something like your smell test for what seems right or wrong can be that, that, that is a separate skill to hone that I think is part of the benefits of this type of education.

And it's, it's really difficult in the moment to try and suss out what someone is saying versus what your, your gut is telling you. But if it's on a trip, then you get to go home and then you get to drink some tea in a setting you're more familiar with and you can think about it in a different way.

And I think it's kind of like watching a movie where like you might walk out of the theater not really digging it, and then like you realize you've been thinking about it for a few weeks afterwards. And it's sort of a realization of, oh, like maybe they were wrong about this thing, or maybe this technique that they used was flawed, but something else that they were pointing out like has resonated with me in a way I didn't expect.

[00:39:09] Pat Penny: Jason. 

[00:39:10] Jason Cohen: It's different but similar in some ways. What we do has similarities to reporting, but is very different in its objectives and how we go about it. So we trust but verify, but I think of it almost as dividing the knowledge into things that are factual, things that are either true or false. Like is, is that flavor of yesheng is that wild tea? Is da ye cultivar Assamica, is, is there been hybridization between the Assamica and the China variety? So, you, you have these factual things where people will say things or there'll be inherited knowledge and those things you can go back and verify or you can understand the sequence of events that cause them to believe this. Either it being something that's common knowledge that's just adopted over conversations of time, or whether it's something that is the terribly named indigenous knowledge. Uh right? Things that matter to farmers, but perhaps matter less to drinkers or, or think of less to drinkers. 

And then there are these things that are preferences that are acquired acculturated preferences. So when you talk about yesheng, right? There's, and they say, oh, that's wild type. Wild type is bad for you. Wild type is poisonous. You shouldn't drink wild type. Yiwu shouldn't be producing wild type. There are two sets of information in that. There's the information about factual is yesheng wild, right? Why do they believe that yesheng is wild. Is there evidence and can we genetically test and can we do other tests to determine if yesheng is wild or hybridized or something else?

And then there's this totally other side that can't be answered with a right or wrong about the preference. Why do they not, why are they promoting this idea of not drinking yesheng tea and why other families disagree? And so when you trace it, you can write factually, or the way that we go about it is we then write factually about the facts. And then we present both sides of the argument, where there's merit, on the opinions. And, in Cult of Quality, in in the more freer blog format, I'm pretty open about my opinions, but in Tea Technique, we try to do a thorough job of steel manning both sides of any argument.

And maybe, if one argument is obviously superior, we'll come down on a side and say this is, this is what we think. But, but yeah, we go, we go about it thinking through the what can, what is, what is factual and, and what is acculturated preferences, because those acculturated preferences can be as interesting as the facts, right? The fact that some tea making tea farming families in Yiwu produce yesheng and others avoid it and think it's bad is incredibly important and incredibly interesting. And it might be much more interesting to many people, particularly to drinkers, than any information around, well, here's the, here's the back, here's the six back crosses between Assamica and qizhong wild type that forms yesheng. That's interesting to me. And it's gonna be, all that's gonna be a hundred pages of, of genetic back cross information. 

[00:42:25] Pat Penny: And just all captured in one footnote that Jason's just dreaming up right now. One footnote, at least eight semicolons, a few m dashes. It's a single sentence. That's what I have to deal with Max.

I think similarly on the parsing fact from fiction and parsing opinion or strongly held conviction from one authority to another, I think this is something that we were kind of like baptized early in Jason. We went and studied with various teachers that were kind of available in our local area. So, for us, that was mostly New York City when we were at Penn State. We brought in teachers from other countries. We had people who are considered relatively like experts from Taiwan, from Korea. We went and studied with experts in Japan. And, we found that across the board, whether it was about the same product or whether it was about teas from these different countries there wasn't always agreement on a lot of things. And so I think, within the first two years or so of studying tea, I had a pretty clear idea of everything that I learn I need to take with a grain of salt and realize that I may be presented with something that actually like completely contradicts it. And whether one is true or not, I kind of have to hold both truths as being possible. And it depends on who I'm engaging with or how I'm engaging with tea for my own purposes that I decide kind of which one do I think is more important in this scenario or more real according to my experience or when, as you mentioned, verifiable, what, what can actually be verified.

And it's interesting having to, I think, like navigate tea and information in that way. Particularly like over the last nearly decade now. Like I've taught tea to actually predominantly beginners just for fun at my company which is a relatively small and unheard of coffee company. But you know, people who are just interested in, in tea and I'm kind of approaching it from a beginner's lens. And these are people who are often pretty knowledgeable about coffee. So I end up getting a well-informed questions coming from an agricultural side where there's times where I'm like, well, actually, I can't give you a factual answer on this. These are the arguments I've been presented with from two different experts who are well-regarded in the field. And here's what I know, make of it what you will. It's kind of hard to give that to some people sometimes. I think it's taken years of having information presented to me that way to be okay with it.

[00:44:41] Max Falkowitz: And there, there's, there's a lot of value in the way that you distill the information that you've received into here's what some people say and here's what some other people say. And that there, there's, there's a, a creative act in the way that you're organizing that information.

But you are also doing a great service to people by, by giving them those options. And like I always say, teach the controversy. That's why I want intelligent design, like offered equal opportunity in schools. 

[00:45:11] Pat Penny: Some things I feel like I have the ability, the creativity to synthesize. And there's others where I'm just like, here's the story guys. You figure it out yourselves. 

[00:45:20] Jason Cohen: That's, that's why I like writing. Writing as the medium. And to that, to that point, Pat, there's been times that the editorial team starts with one opinion and ends with another. 

[00:45:29] Pat Penny: There's times where you present something and I'm like, this has to be wrong. There's no way this is right. And I love to prove Jason wrong, so I do as much digging as I can possibly do. And, and unfortunately there's times where I have to admit that he's right. And it's greater than 50 50. You do, you do, you do your research. But you know, the, the few moments where I get to point something out and say, well, I don't think you took into account this, are, are pretty satisfying.

[00:45:53] Jason Cohen: That's, that's the role of the editorial team. It wouldn't, wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be doing this work without that type of rigorous background research and fact checking. 

[00:46:03] Pat Penny: Well, thank, thank you to the editorial team for putting together that nice easy softball question. We'll, we'll throw it to an actual easy one, which I think will nicely queue up an audience question. So what was the last tea that reset your scale?

[00:46:17] Max Falkowitz: Mm-hmm. 

[00:46:19] Jason Cohen: What was the last tea? I have two answers to this. One of them was you and I, Pat. It was one of the Yibang teas that we tasted while we were in Yiwu after visiting Yibang. 

[00:46:29] Pat Penny: Maoerduo or like the da hei shu lin tea?

[00:46:33] Jason Cohen: The da hei shu lin and the, the danzhu. 

[00:46:37] Pat Penny: The danzhu we did, the one that got away?

[00:46:40] Jason Cohen: Yeah. The danzhu that got away. The, the transcendental, the transcendent, reset your scale, top of the top danzhu. The, the, 

[00:46:50] Pat Penny: The danzhu where, where we went, can we buy a hundred grams? And they were like, it's all or nothing. And we were like, oh, 

[00:46:56] Jason Cohen: You buy the harvest. Yeah. And I was so close to just saying, okay, it'll be my tea budget for the year. But then I know myself well enough to know that meant it would've been my tea budget for the month. And I was going to, to Wuyi after that and had some other spots. So it was 

[00:47:15] Pat Penny: Time to take out a loan. 

[00:47:17] Jason Cohen: It was painful.

[00:47:22] Max Falkowitz: Look, your wife understands. She's, she's a supporter in your endeavors. 

[00:47:26] Jason Cohen: I'm not married yet. 

[00:47:29] Max Falkowitz: Good. Then you're not showing finances, then just do it. Do it now. 

[00:47:33] Jason Cohen: No, 

[00:47:34] Pat Penny: I think, I think Jason has a bit of a, a sugar mama situation going on, so I don't, I don't think, I don't think Nancy wants you spending that kind of budget.

[00:47:43] Jason Cohen: I mean, I don't think I want to be spending that kind of budget, but it is, it is painful. That is one that got away. And then the other one which I guess you haven't had yet, Pat, is, is I had some Wuyi red tea that is, that is on an entirely different planet. Like off market, yeah.

[00:48:05] Pat Penny: Standard Jason Cohen, super accessible product. You did tell me that you would sell me some of it though, once you got it, right. 

[00:48:10] Jason Cohen: I will, I will. 

[00:48:11] Pat Penny: Okay. Thank you. Max, how about for you? 

[00:48:15] Max Falkowitz: This, this isn't a, a new drink, but I have been re reevaluating the category recently. I've been cupping a lot of Lu'an (六安黑茶) and just trying to learn more about it because it's a category of tea I really enjoy. And there's so little on it that it, it feels like treasure hunting. And I have a few baskets that I, that I like to drink through. And then a collector friend who specializes in vintage tea ware shared some allegedly seventies Lu'an that is probably in the $3 a gram range. And it just kind of broke me, like all the other stuff just tastes like a shadow of what it should now. And I, after, after some like period of grieving, I can still drink the baskets that I have and enjoy them. But when I hit it big on, on some project, I think like some really expensive Lu'an in my future. 

[00:49:13] Jason Cohen: That is a very left field answer.

[00:49:17] Pat Penny: Yeah, we're, we're talking over here about Yiwu puer, Wuyi yancha, Wuyi reds, right? Lu'an was not my, what I expected either, but I mean, it's, it's amazing. I think tea from any category can show you heartbreak, can just show you how, what, what is out there and what you don't have.

[00:49:32] Jason Cohen: I have a basket, a Lu'an basket that I like never touch. I think I've touched it once every six to eight years since I acquired it. It was like a 1993 Malaysia stored basket, I bought it in China, but it went to Malaysia and it came back in an collector acquisition. But anyway, come over anytime. I am happy to break it out. It'll be the first time in probably eight years that I have looked at that basket.

[00:49:58] Max Falkowitz: Hell yeah. People should drink more Lu'an and I think especially people that are like shou puer fans should... there, there's a lot for them to really enjoy about it. 

[00:50:09] Pat Penny: I think Jason, beyond the one that got away, the Yibang danzhu, I think for me, coming out of a similar time period on that trip, when we went to Kunming, we had a 1950s Liu Bao with a, a vendor and, and now friend. And he also sent us home with some dust from the bottom of that Liu Bao bin. So he was like, all right, we're, we're almost at the bottom basically of the, the basket. Here you guys go, here's, here's 20 grams of dust. Throw it in a tea bag and enjoy. And obviously the, the tea itself was scale resetting.

But when we flew home, and actually now basically every time I fly, I throw like a gram of that dust into a small 200 milliliter thermos and just hit it with boiling water and let it sit for like hours. And I mean that, sitting on a plane and just like drinking two or three cups of that Liu Bao just changes the entire plane ride. Like I am flying on another plane of existence just on Liu Bao dust fumes and every time that resets my expectations for body feel and all of that for a tea experience. 

[00:51:06] Jason Cohen: That's amazing. I haven't actually touched that dust yet, but I will say that I love Liu Bao. So I think Lu'an is kind of left field stuff, but Liu Bao is my Sunday morning dim sum tea. I have a Onggi tea pot, a Korean ware from Onggi master that Pat and I, made some ceramics with, and I take that, 

[00:51:29] Pat Penny: Is it your, your elephant pot or the one that, not the one you made. 

[00:51:32] Jason Cohen: It's not the elephant pot. It's not the one that I made. That is in my mother's possession.

[00:51:36] Pat Penny: Okay. Yes, I know the other pot. 

[00:51:37] Jason Cohen: But yeah, with the, the gold leaf. And I just pack that with Liu Bao and we go brew after brew after brew with dim sum. And I, I love it. I like Liu Bao I think a lot more than shou puer. I've pretty rarely ever taught shou puer and I love Liu Bao with food. 

[00:51:55] Pat Penny: The problem is like in the last decade, everyone else has also started to like Liu Bao a lot on the West. And so I feel like, 2014, 2015, you could get some really good Liu Bao for a good price. Now Liu Bao prices compete with sheng puer prices. 

[00:52:09] Jason Cohen: For age stuff, yeah. 

[00:52:10] Pat Penny: Yes. 

[00:52:12] Jason Cohen: Yeah. 

[00:52:13] Pat Penny: Okay. So I think this question teed us up nicely for one of the audience questions. So, when you guys talk about reference teas or reference for tea quality teas, do you mean you've literally tried hundreds of different teas and remember what they all tasted like? Or is it more like you've had a few really exceptional examples that recalibrate your scale? 'Cause I have a terrible memory and the idea that I need to remember every tea I've ever had is stressing me out. So what, what do you say to this reader? 

[00:52:37] Jason Cohen: Don't stress Pat. 

[00:52:39] Pat Penny: It's not me. 

[00:52:39] Jason Cohen: I'm just so trolling. 

Why don't you answer that, Pat? You didn't answer the last question, so why don't you answer that?

[00:52:46] Pat Penny: I did answer the last question. It was, it was the Liu Bao, but yeah, this, this is hard. So I think for me, I approach it first as like just reference flavors and just reference to products in general. I think tea is like a, a category down or a bucket down.

So first it's kind of like, how do I, across all taste and all products, how do I just think about flavor and products? I think that that's what I reference more than I reference any singular tea. Unless I'm getting very specific about categories. But yeah, reference teas or references for quality tea, I don't, I don't feel like, well one, I don't remember every single tea I've ever drank. And you don't need to either.

I think what I really remember is what are some of the attributes of tea categories that I find to be really pleasant and I've been told by authorities that indicate high quality, whether it's for a certain area or a certain production style. And then, I think about how I've experienced those in different teas, whether that was actually a really good tea or really bad tea. How did that quality show up? And over time I think I learned to flesh out how that quality appears and how it feels to me and how I experience it. And then that's how I then approach teas across the board.

There are some rare instances where there's like a very specific reference tea, right? So Jason and I brought up that Yibang danzhu that we experienced this year. Year to year there might be a handful of teas, like probably under 10 that I remember and go on to remember because of how they might have recalibrated my scale. Thinking back to when I started drinking tea, there's a very few handful of experiences I probably still remember to this day that really still inform my references.

But I bet you if I revisited them, there'd be things that I feel differently about now. Right. So it's, it's not, I think, really about remembering everything you've ever drank. It's about I think building up the skills to, to then know what is important. Go ahead, Jason. 

[00:54:42] Jason Cohen: But you're a better taster now than you were then.

And 

[00:54:46] Pat Penny: Yeah. 

[00:54:47] Jason Cohen: You've developed better sensory memory. 'Cause I, 'cause I actually take totally the opposite track of you. My, my answer is unfortunately yes, you should be striving to remember. Look, if something is bad and you spit it and you don't like it, right, like fine. It's not the most important thing to dwell on, but for anything that you believe is good, you, you should be building up a sensory memory and a catalog. Particularly if you want to do blind tastings, right? There's two schools in tasting and there's the ability to describe what you're tasting with a large vocabulary and all that. And there's ability to do blind identification and for various reasons, a lot of people believe that the true test of skill is blind identification. So sometimes people show up with a cake of something or a tea or something to like a talk taste triage event and say, identify this, right? And that is really a catalog search. 

[00:55:36] Pat Penny: Identify this, you fraud. 

[00:55:37] Jason Cohen: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:55:38] Pat Penny: That's how they say it to you, right?

[00:55:39] Jason Cohen: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's pretty antagonistic. And sometimes they believe they know what it is, and sometimes, they really don't know what it is. But, but in either case, it would be very, it'd be very troubling to get it wrong. And so, you have to go through all of the, the things that you've tasted and cross reference this.

And this is something that, that they train like in wine school, right? The, the ideas, blind identification is the proof that you are a Court of Master sommelier or Master of Wine. Is it identical in tea? Well, it's much harder in tea because of processing variations and agricultural variations and batch to batch and brewing parameters and all that.

But I take a bit of a different tracking. One, I do take very extensive notes and everything that we're tasting, and I transcribe those notes and I try to work it into a system. But beyond that, even without the notes, the sensory memory is there. You should be able to sip something blind. And recall, this is similar to these things for these reasons, which indicates this aspects. Like, is this the most important skill in your journey of tea? It depends what you want to focus on. But it is something that, that a lot of the most experienced practitioners and teachers can do. 

[00:56:53] Pat Penny: And confirm the massive amount of notes you take on every single tea you think possibly could reference or inform you in any way, shape or form. Jason annoyingly takes out his notebook basically all the time. 

[00:57:08] Max Falkowitz: I think it's really about finding a process that works for you because mine is, is kind of the exact opposite. It's really based on intuition. Part of the work is developing your palette and learning how to recognize dimensions that can point you towards reference teas.

But I also always wanna ask like, reference to whom and a reference of what. It's very tempting to think of this as, as a fixed canon that can be, that can be replicated to different people's mental mappings of something. One, the taste of things changes over time. Scotch used to be aged in cherry barrels and now it's aged in bourbon barrels. And also depending on who your sources are, their references and their cultural context is going to inform what they view as a reference tea.

So, for me, I look at it two ways. There's, there's top down canon and bottom up canon. And when I was a, a baby food writer who was covering barbecue, the barbecue boom in New York City, like 12 years ago, my, my boss, Ed Levine asked me, well, what's your reference for brisket? And I didn't have an answer to him and I was very embarrassed.

[00:58:19] Pat Penny: I mean, you are Jewish, so there, there's a reference, right? 

[00:58:22] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. But the reference is like bad deckle, bad flat, that is cooked in too much Lipton onion gravy. But the brisket that I was writing about that angered my boss so much, I do consider one of the reference briskets. And it was from like a guy from, like a hipster from Brooklyn who just started doing brisket for himself and I have tasted a lot of brisket since, both in New York and not, not in Texas though, so don't at me. And I still feel like that brisket I had was a reference brisket. And yeah, sure, if I tasted again now, I'd probably have different perspectives on it.

But part of the skills, like you, you kind of know when something like clicks and you can either get that by really trusting someone who is trustworthy in the way that, that they think about something matches to what you're thinking about. Or it's, it's from like developing the intuition to recognize like, oh, like this is really special in some way. Does that favor teas that have some particularly memorable part, even if that also includes flaws? Probably. And that is a problem in a lot of different fields of food and drink that people have to reckon with. But that's all the more reason that I wonder, reference to whom and reference about what? 

[00:59:44] Pat Penny: Yeah. I love the temporal aspect that you're bringing up there. 'Cause I definitely think there's recency bias, like in my references, right? Everything I remember from this past year being amazing has kind of reset the scale and it's reset it because it's the most recent, but in some cases I believe it's because it was better as well. But if I were to try, 7638 shou puer from 1976 again, how would I feel about it? It's one of the early reference teas I think for Jason and I, one of definitely the scale and defining teas of what shou puer could be. Jason, go ahead on what you were gonna say. 

[01:00:12] Jason Cohen: Well, just, just, I don't disagree with anything that you said, Max, but it's interesting, right? 'Cause because I was talking about these two branches of knowledge, the, the ability to, to taste and understand and intuit what you're tasting, on the other side, this blind identification. And it sounds like from your description that you've decided to focus on one of those aspects above, above another. I don't know if you would agree with that. 

[01:00:35] Max Falkowitz: I try to pay attention to both. And I think blind identification is important for all of the reasons that you say. And there's a reason it is the standard for wine schools, for cheese monger competitions. I, I just think personally I would probably be pretty bad at it and have accepted that as kind of a limitation for me. But also part of what I try to do as a writer is be like professionally dumb so that I can learn from people who are smarter than me and know more than me.

So, like part of it is that's kind of like my shtick, but it's also like that has been the way that has been useful for me to pursue and obtain knowledge. And that might not be the same for, for other people. I think you have kind of have to find your own path through what that means. But yeah, I, I, I do think it's, it's important to, to, to follow both of those pursuits and the way, Jason, that you were talking about, breaking things down into what can be proven factually versus what is opinion versus what is cultural context. I think it's a really useful framework for thinking about all of these things.

[01:01:43] Pat Penny: Okay. I love it. I think we'll, we'll jump into another question that we got from the audience. And I think this is maybe coming off of your guys' conversation previously. So, is Wuyi yancha even worth drinking at this point? Your trip report made it sound pretty grim. Should those of us in the West just accept that we'll never get real yancha and focus our energy and money elsewhere? 'Cause I've spent a lot of money on Yancha. So I don't know, Jason, if you wanna take it first since it's based on your trip report, but I think you guys talked a little about this in your conversation. 

[01:02:12] Jason Cohen: I'm just gonna say he did not, whoever asked the question, I don't know how much you spent, but you did not spend a lot of money on yancha. I'm sorry, there. If we have to talk about the cost, you didn't spend enough. 

[01:02:24] Pat Penny: Jason added another member to the Jason Cohen Hate Club. 

[01:02:27] Jason Cohen: Yeah. The unfortunate thing is, is that it's basically true. I'm not saying you should never drink any yancha. I'm not even saying that Yancha from outside the Zheng Yan or the Ecological Protection Area is bad. It's not my, my, my goal or my point. If things taste good to you and you're tasting it against other things and you have multiple references and you like it, by all means continue to like it.

Just don't take it to be the target and don't take it to be the, the be all, end all. I mean, every single time I go back to, to Wuyi now, far beyond other places that we go, my scale gets reset on basically every cultivar in every region in every style of processing. And part of it is that the, the access isn't there. What people are willing to share with you depends on how often you, you, you show up, and you have to be able to prove that you could taste the differences.

So I'm not saying don't buy what's available to you or what's affordable to you in Yancha, but I am certainly saying don't, don't over index in this specific tea. My advice in every other class of tea is go out and spend as much as you can from a trusted source and try something that's great and don't, don't buy a ton of it. Buy enough that you can do a couple of sessions over the course of tasting with other things and with other people and see if you can come to the realization of why it's great. My advice in yancha is do not do that. Because you are not gonna get what you want to get. 

[01:04:08] Pat Penny: Max, do you have a take on this?

[01:04:11] Max Falkowitz: Yeah, I'm a lot less teleological in how I approach learning about these teas and, and that's a kind of woo woo cop out. But I guess my first question to you've spent a lot on yancha is, how, how was it as a tea experience for you? How did it compare to other teas, both in that price range and, and not? Did you enjoy it? Did you feel good drinking it?

I used to write about restaurants a lot, so I'll put this in the context of restaurants. There's a lot of restaurants that are canonical in New York City that I have not been to despite, at various points having a, a budget from a, a company to, to do so. They're either too exclusive or they're just too full of models, and it's kind of annoying and triggering to be there, or just whatever, like you, there's a million restaurants in New York and a lot of them are so stuffed with reservation scalpers that like, you just can't get in. And so even though I live in the same city as, as these restaurants, the food that they serve is essentially academic to me. I, I will never taste it and thus it kind of doesn't really matter to my experience. And if, if I were being asked to rank, what are the best restaurants in New York? That would be a problem.

But if I were approaching this with the goal of I want to eat well and I want to not get ripped off, and I, I want to, to eat from people who have a, a creative vision. You can do that at a lot of different restaurants that don't have to be from that, that vaulted list. And I think what Jason is saying is absolutely true. You don't want to overindex on what your experiences are versus the apex of something.

But I think that's kind of true for, for everything. And ultimately, I don't know, tea is made to be consumed and enjoyed or at least hopeful, okay. Most tea is made to just be sold. But if you're presumably buying, spending enough on yancha that you feel like you're spending enough on yancha, you are buying tea from someone that is making it so that you can enjoy it. And if you enjoy it and you have a good experience with it. Like, mission accomplished. That's, that's the purpose of the transaction. 

[01:06:06] Jason Cohen: Your answer is so much nicer than mine. That's why you have a much larger readership. 

[01:06:12] Pat Penny: I, I think my, my take on this is just maybe a little bit more in line with Max's in that, whatever you were comfortable spending and whatever you got, if you enjoyed it, that's great. I don't, like, don't hyper fixate on what is real yancha. I would just, like whatever opinions you've formed from what you had and what you enjoyed, just be ready to hold them loosely.

And I think kind of similar to what you said as well, Max, just being open right to learning, you know what? Whatever you've consumed and whatever you got, whatever information your vendor gave you, know that that might be true for them and for what they said.

But how true that is, if you were to take that context and actually go to Wuyi and then experience something similar you might find contradicting points of view. So just hold those opinions loosely. And I think you can enjoy whatever amount of money you spent on your yancha and just keep enjoying it. Yeah, don't, don't focus.

I mean, I, Jason and I, the first time we went to Wuyi, I think we had a very suboptimal experience. I, I certainly think before that we had had yanchas from Taiwan. We had yancha from Western vendors, sourced through people in Taiwan, sourced through Western vendors that were better than a lot of what we had when we were in Wuyi.

So, always be open to learning and, and don't be too dogmatic on what you hear or learn about the products that you've bought. That's my hot take.

All right, I think we maybe have time for one or two more. And for those who have joined us online as well, feel free to, if you have your own questions that weren't submitted before, feel free to drop them in the chat and you'll, you'll be shortlisted. You'll go right up first.

[01:07:45] Jason Cohen: We'll always prioritize the live question. 

[01:07:46] Max Falkowitz: I just wanna shout out to great aunt Jackie. This mug still has tea in it after an hour and a half, and that's the power of the giant fucking mug. 

[01:07:55] Pat Penny: Hell yeah. See, I'm, I'm sitting here empty. I mean, you can see it's just the dregs now, there's no liquid in here. I'm getting thirsty. 

[01:08:03] Jason Cohen: Okay. I just wanna say that this is great. 

[01:08:07] Pat Penny: Jason's like I just wanna say, this bottle that none of you can find or afford is awesome. 

[01:08:13] Jason Cohen: Yeah. Carl Cardenal Mendoza's, this is not 

[01:08:16] Pat Penny: Accessible. Relatable. All right. 

[01:08:20] Jason Cohen: It's the most accessible thing I've drank on this podcast. 

[01:08:23] Pat Penny: That is true.

So, we were talking a little bit about vendors. So I think this is a fitting question. Should vendors explicitly say things like this tea is for drinking young, or this tea is for drinking aged or is that claim inherently speculative marketing? What do you guys think about that? Vendors making specific claims around how you should consume the product. 

[01:08:41] Max Falkowitz: Hmm.

I, I think it depends on the vendor, and it depends on your, your vibe about them. There are some people that I would trust to say, hold off on this for a bit, but I am skeptical of someone who is selling tea that is not ready to be drunk at the point of sale. Why are you not? Yes, it's expensive to keep aging that tea, but why are you selling it before it's ready? Like in, in, in, in cheese, like affinage is a very important part of the process. And like, why would you sell a wheel of Brie before it's fully mature or before it's at a enough of a ripeness that it will keep maturing in someone's fridge without going bad. So I don't know. And I, I, I think it's a useful heuristic if you're saying like, okay, I want some tea that I know will still like, be good in 10 years or something. But I think that, that really has to be a choice that you make with your gut. 

[01:09:43] Jason Cohen: I, I like that answer. I actually took this question almost the opposite way. I'd be totally fine with someone saying like, don't age this. Drink this now, drink this fresh, do not age this. Don't let this sit. But I, I totally agree with you, Max. Yeah. I don't know if I would trust the, the idea of someone saying buy this, it's not good right now. Give it, give it five years.

[01:10:03] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. I, I, I I like what you're saying too, Jason and I, I think it is very compelling when a puer focused seller says, drink this right now, that does typically get my attention and say, oh, like they, they probably, because of all of the speculative value that comes from saying it's ageable, to hear them say, drink this now feels very telling.

[01:10:23] Pat Penny: Yeah. I, I don't know that I have anything to add on that. I do feel like in any other product category, if someone says, consume now you, you consume now you don't think about it. Very few things I think are like puer, where we've placed such a, a value on what it might become or what it could become with no real evidence of how it's actually going to become, particularly in your storage environment.

So, if someone were to say, yeah, don't drink this for 10 years, you know that, that's a great business model for them. They could go ahead, sell a ton of it and become untraceable. Just, drop their business, never, never find a way to contact them. And then in 10 years, the tea's horrible. And you've got no one to complain about it to except yourself. So yeah, I think I'm totally in line with what you guys were saying. 

[01:11:07] Max Falkowitz: There's a brilliant racket about this in the bonsai world where you sell juniper cutting that you've taken off a branch and put in some soggy soil. And juniper trees take three or four weeks to announce to you that they're dead, which is just long enough for the purchaser to think that the destined to die juniper's death is their fault. And then they go out and buy another tree, and then that one dies. And it's a great business model if you wanna sell snake oil. And I don't know if there's a similarly self-destructing analog for tea, but now I want to see if there is one. 

[01:11:43] Pat Penny: Maybe 'cause I think often, people will not let their teas get through storage shock. They might have had a sample. They get a, a tea shipped to them. They take it, they taste it the first time and they go, this isn't really what I remember drinking. And it's not so much that they go out and buy another one then and there, but they probably do go and buy more tea 'cause they're not liking what they're drinking. 

[01:12:03] Jason Cohen: Storage, storage shock is real. Even humidity shocks are real. I mean, my storage is pretty well regulated humidity, but even I just the other day and put my nose in one of the, the tea containers and, and smelled a little damp, a little off a little Hong Kong. And so I said, looked at my RH meters, a little high. It was closer to 80 versus the, which is not really all that high compared Taiwan, Hong Kong storage, but certainly had a little bit of that aroma. Aired it, came back, gave it a sniff the next day, fine. Exactly the, the smell that I, that I expected. But the interesting thing, right, if I had tasted it that day, if I had pulled a tea and tasted that day, particularly if I didn't rinse, brewed heavy, I would've thought, oh, my, oh, my tea is bad, right? It was, it was fine. Took a day, needed Rh regulate. But, but those types of things are real.

[01:13:00] Pat Penny: Okay. I've got one more. And then Jason, if there's anything that you wanna touch upon at the end, you can go ahead and do that. This one I think is a little bit more to you, Jason, but the Tea Technique change logs show a burst of writing following the research trips. What workflow do you follow to convert field notes or primary sources into books or posts? And actually, this might be a good opportunity to apologize for delays in content publishing. Go, go for it. 

[01:13:23] Jason Cohen: Yeah. The amount of work that goes into writing Tea Technique is a little, a little unreal. I've said this before on the podcast, I, I have to do my writing first thing in the morning, or it's very difficult to do any writing that day. And, Pat was mentioning the amount of notes that I take. I usually fill a notebook on every trip and sometimes every area in a trip.

And those notes get transcribed. They're not just notes in a notebook. They then get cross reference with the other editors on the trip's notes. And then those notes get then turned into expanded notes or ideas that are gonna be written about in the book, and then they get cross-referenced with tasting notes, which are taken separately from information notes. And then they get cross-references with past things. So this builds, the 30, 40 pages of notes can turn into a hundred pages of draft material, which is all then going to be re-edited, written into the book, and then re-copy checked and re-edited. And so that happens before you can even get to the point of writing a chapter and having the editorial team review it and fact check it, copy edit it, and, and all of that. So it is, I mean, these books, we didn't think of this at the time, but these books have turned into a three to five year projects.

[01:14:46] Pat Penny: And any apologies you wanna add to the readership for recent delays or anything. 

[01:14:51] Jason Cohen: Well, the recent chapters have been like 25 plus pages each, so that's a little bit of a longer publication schedule than our standard 10 to 15 page chapter. 

[01:15:03] Pat Penny: Okay. So I know we're at like five thirty. First Max, anything you wanted to kinda add on to like field notes and, and the like, and then after that, Jason, I'll have you do closing words.

[01:15:13] Jason Cohen: Yeah. 

[01:15:14] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. I'll say it's really helpful to have deadlines from people who are paying you in order to, to get your shit together. But the, the post trip digestion of what you've accumulated is for me, a crucial part of the process. Everything is so new and fresh when you're experiencing it, and then you kind of need to think about it. And as you're doing bits of research, different aspects of the trip come into focus and you realize, oh, this is a part of the story that that I need to report on more. So the digestion winds up shaping the post visit reporting about something. But yeah, without a regular deadline, either for myself on Leaf Hopper or with editors, it would be a much more difficult process for me. So I, I don't envy you guys. And, and, and the tasks that you've set for yourselves. 

[01:16:04] Pat Penny: I think we're only like, just figuring out how to do like good field copy and good field, I'm gonna say quote unquote, reporting, but note, note taking. It was only this past year that Jason and I started using, like recording on our phones to take notes. Prior to that it was like everything we're in, we're in a tea field on a mountain hiking and have our notebooks out taking notes. And then somehow that has to be legible enough that like when we transcribe it, we actually get the information right. I think this year finally we were like let's just say some of this into a phone. Like, that's gotta be easier. 

[01:16:37] Jason Cohen: And that, that works pretty well. The other one that we were really bad at sometimes is knowing where we took a photo. Like we took this photo. We know what it is, looking at it, but we don't know exactly where it is. Or we don't know. 

[01:16:50] Pat Penny: Is this Mansa or Gedeng? Where were we? 

[01:16:52] Jason Cohen: Yeah. Like why did we take these two ones side by side? There's something different about these two trees. Now what we do is we take the photo, we actually just type out what the photo is on a copy of the photo on the phone. 

[01:17:06] Max Falkowitz: Yeah. So much of my reporting is taking photos of things that will never be part of an article that are just like, this is easier to record in a picture that will unlock a semantic memory for me later.

[01:17:20] Jason Cohen: Yeah. 

[01:17:21] Pat Penny: I think this is where we have a, a lot of learning. So Max, we'll take, we'll take all the hints and tips and tricks because we're still, as I said, we just, we just started recording on our phones last year, so I think there's a, a few tricks for us coming, coming up. 

[01:17:34] Max Falkowitz: I loved the, the, the recent trip reports. They, they feel informed and human. Like they're, they're like critics notebooks would be like the newspaper sort of version for them. And, and I, I, whatever you guys are doing, it's working. 

[01:17:47] Pat Penny: Thank you. Thank you. All right, Jason, pass it your way.

[01:17:51] Jason Cohen: Yeah, I don't know. Is there, is there any questions that you had, Max, anything that you wanted to ask?

[01:17:55] Max Falkowitz: Oh, geez. I, I, I've just been preparing for another round of hot takes that you're gonna throw on me last minute. So, 

[01:18:00] Pat Penny: And with that, let's take out our hot takes. Hot takes. 

[01:18:06] Jason Cohen: I actually don't really have any hot takes for, for this one. We usually do around of hot takes right at the end, but I don't know. I think, I think, I think we mostly covered it.

[01:18:18] Pat Penny: Yeah, for anyone whose questions we missed, sorry, but I mean, feel free to resubmit at any time. Even if, even if we don't have an AMA, you can actually just send us questions, we will answer them. Depending on the length of your question, it might take longer to answer. We did actually have one that I'll throw in here at the end.

Jason, we did get a question on Instagram. What, what does it take to join a Tea Technique research trip? 

[01:18:42] Jason Cohen: Hmm. Luck, skill. 

[01:18:44] Pat Penny: So you're not, you're not sending out an open invite? 

[01:18:46] Jason Cohen: No, there's not an open invite. I mean, there's places where it'd be easy to meet with us. If you, if you want to hang out in Taipei while we're in Taipei. If you wanna hang out in, even in, in somewhere like Kunming, Shanghai, Guangzhou these are areas where there are tea houses, where we have good contacts where we can easily go out for, for, for tea and have a nice time together.

Going on these actual research trips, one of the reasons that people meet with us that are, that are willing to say what they're willing to say is, and, and, and give us this information and share these references. One, because they know that we're not selling anything except, you know, our, our work is fully knowledge, very academic.

But the other thing is they know that if they don't want it on the record, the, the information won't be attributed. We don't say names. We don't say, X person said this and Y person said this, and we agree with X and Y is wrong because we, that's, that's, that's not our game. We, we learn from many different people. We try to, to synthesize the knowledge in a way that it can be presented publicly, right, where it's, it's verifiable. You could look at the way that we went about proving it, but it's not, we, these people said these things and, and so that's one of the reasons that, that people are willing to meet with us.

So it's not so easy to say like, oh, can I come on a, on a, on a trip, right? We've built up this trust over more than a decade now of this type of progressive work. And, and there it's not, it's not people, even visitors who go to buy tea have a very different experience than, than, than what we are getting when we sit down with, with the notebooks and say, we are planning to write a book about this topic, right?

Let's start from the start, from the beginning. 

[01:20:31] Pat Penny: So I think in summary, we'd love to meet with you, just like, not like in Yiwu Village. It'd be more like, let's, let's meet somewhere we can go to some tea houses together. 

[01:20:41] Jason Cohen: Yeah, which will still make great contacts. We love our tea houses. 

[01:20:45] Pat Penny: And we love our readership, so thank you for sending in the question.

[01:20:49] Jason Cohen: Yes. Yeah, we do want to meet you. Just, just not in Niulan Keng. 

[01:20:55] Pat Penny: Yeah. I'll tell you, there's a lot less cool places for us to drink beer and have shao kao in all these areas than there is in the cities. So let's go to the city, have some tea, eat some good food. It'll be a better experience. 

[01:21:07] Jason Cohen: Yeah. 

[01:21:09] Pat Penny: Okay. Jason, pass it to you. 

[01:21:11] Jason Cohen: Oh, that's amazing. Thank you everyone for joining us in this edition of Tea Technique Editorial Conversations. Particularly thank you to everyone who submitted questions, everyone who joined us for the live event. This will be posted on YouTube and all of our channels and on podcast and particularly thank you, Max, for joining us. You've now done two of these live sessions where we put you in the hot seat and it's been, it's been amazing. 

[01:21:39] Max Falkowitz: It's been really great to be here. It's great interacting with your flavor of nerdom and to be a sick little freaky tea pervert with you all. So I'm grateful to be here and these are fun. We should do more of these in the future. 

[01:21:54] Pat Penny: The only way to describe it, durian flavor of tea nerdom, that's us.

[01:21:59] Jason Cohen: And that I'm gonna lead us out. 

Chapter Discussion Sections:

• 00:00 Introduction
• 00:24 Understanding Tunnel Kilns
• 01:58 Advantages and Disadvantages of Tunnel Kilns
• 05:20 Subtypes of Tunnel Kilns
• 08:36 The First Instrumented Kiln and Impact on Firing Skills
• 12:53 The Role of Timing and Data in Firing
• 18:00 Fuel Sources and Their Effects on Kiln Atmosphere
• 21:35 Double Firing and Its Impact on Yixing Wares
• 26:28 The Zhengkou Process
• 29:52 Modernization of Saggars
• 31:34 Visiting a Tunnel Kiln in Yixing
• 35:41 Collecting and Using F1 and Contemporary Zisha Wares

Transcript 

[00:00:05] Jason Cohen: Hello everyone. I'm Jason Cohen and the author of an Introduction to the Art and Science of Chinese Tea Ceremony. Today we're discussing book two, chapter 10, section four Tunnel Kilns. Here to talk about this chapters are editorial team Patrick Penny. 

[00:00:19] Pat Penny: Hey, hey. 

[00:00:20] Jason Cohen: And Zongjun Li. 

[00:00:21] Zongjun Li: Hello, hello. 

[00:00:23] Jason Cohen: Hello, Pat. Hello, Zongjun.

My first question, what is a tunnel kiln and how does it differ from the prior kilns we've discussed?

[00:00:30] Zongjun Li: Well, it's different in many, many ways. I guess we can talk about some of the specific difference in other questions. But tunnel kiln is very, very long. It's frequently longer than some of the longest dragon kiln. And all of these wares are fired in a continuous way. So it starts preheating in the beginning. And then there is a section of the firing belt, where the wares gets actually centered. And then as the wares exiting out of the tunnel kiln, it starts to cool down. So there's a temperature difference across the kiln and a ware will through each section of the kiln in a temporal manner.

[00:01:17] Jason Cohen: If you can help visualize this, either one of you, this is literally a tunnel, right? The wares are moving from the entrance of the tunnel, through the tunnel and then exit the tunnel. 

[00:01:27] Pat Penny: Yeah. 

[00:01:27] Zongjun Li: That's right. 

[00:01:27] Pat Penny: I mean, when we think about the big difference on this versus other kiln, it's really that movement, right? When you think about dragon kiln or if you just think about any kind of gas or electric kiln, wares are not moving through it. But this tunnel kiln, that idea of motion, I think is really what sets it apart.

[00:01:44] Jason Cohen: So this kiln is actually mechanical in some way. It's, it's taking wares and pulling them through the kiln or pushing them through the kiln. 

[00:01:52] Pat Penny: Yeah. And I think we're gonna talk about pushing a lot more in this chapter. 

[00:01:56] Zongjun Li: Yeah. 

[00:01:58] Jason Cohen: What are the advantages or disadvantages of a tunnel kiln? Why were they brought to Yixing?

[00:02:04] Pat Penny: Tunnel kilns allow you to have this continuous batch of product going through the kiln. So when you think about firing in like a downdraft kiln, electric kiln, you have a batch that goes in, you need to go from heat up through centering, cool down, and that's one single batch that's being finished in what can be up to days.

With this tunnel kiln, it really allowed for the collectivized labor and industrialization of Yixing ceramics as a whole from an art to become an industrial product where you literally have what, what is like basically a conveyor belt for firing. So you can have many more batches going through a tunnel kiln.

Your output is probably able to exceed that of a single batch downdraft kiln. You are also still able to maintain quite a degree of control too, which I, I'm sure we're gonna talk about. But through stacking some of these saggars, you're able to not only fire continuously and a large volume, but you can fine tune really your firing as well. So I think they really just allowed for the industrialization and modernization of the Yixing industry. 

[00:03:10] Zongjun Li: Yeah, it's far easier to manage a tunnel kiln versus other kiln 'cause for tunnel kiln, there's no such thing as a cool down period for the kiln itself. So the kiln can be used for much, much longer time without a maintenance. Frequently five to seven years, you literally just have the kiln continue being used. You're just adding into the kiln and the temperature of each section of the kiln pretty much remain the same. So that's why you don't really have any kind of contraction or crackage of the kiln itself.

So that's much superior and you do have some level of temperature adjustment of each section of the kiln depending on how you stack the sagger and how do you stack the wares. But I guess, one of the shortcomings for tunnel kiln is that you cannot really adjust the kiln atmosphere. So you basically cannot fire Wuhui (焐灰) or any kind of wares that require reduction fired or any of the wares that required a very high temperature. 'Cause even though you can adjust the temperature gradient, it's really varied anywhere from a hundred to 200 degrees. So if you want to fire a super high temperature ware like a zhuni (朱泥), then it'll be very difficult.

[00:04:26] Pat Penny: I think Zongjun touched really nicely upon the consistency of temperature within each section of the kiln as it related to maintenance. I think another interesting area is consistency of the firing, right? So, if an artist puts in a pretty consistent ware, they can expect a pretty consistent outcome.

Whereas single batch firing, like in a downdraft kiln, because of potentially different kiln atmosphere, different fuel source that product could go many different ways for the outcome. But tunnel kilns are gonna allow a, a very consistent output for an artistic product.

[00:04:59] Zongjun Li: Yeah, that's very true. For the usage of tunnel kiln, we're talking about like F1, F2 period, it was really when the production of Yixing moving from a artisanal product into a industrial product. You are aiming for a consistency. You're aiming for exportation of millions of pieces a year. So that's very, very important. 

[00:05:20] Jason Cohen: Are there subtypes of tunnel kilns?

[00:05:23] Zongjun Li: I'm sorry, Jason, you said subtypes? 

[00:05:27] Jason Cohen: Subtypes, like different forms or different types of tunnel kilns. 

[00:05:31] Pat Penny: One type that we got to see when we were in Yixing and Jason, you write about in here is the pushed-bat kiln, which when we were in Yixing, I thought it was called a pushback kiln, which still makes sense with the mechanism that I, I saw. But you talk a little bit about the translation in the chapter, but it's basically that you've got these giant ceramic blocks and a battering arm or a battering ramp that pushes the blocks continuously through the kiln at a very specific time point where basically a new block is able to be added every 15 minutes, and then saggars will be stacked on top of it.

[00:06:04] Jason Cohen: I think that that footnote might be worth reading here. It's called a pushed-bat kiln. And in this chapter we write, the etymology here seems to be English bat as in battering ram, not bat as in the animal. If so, the co-option of the prefix bat is an incorrect spelling and pronunciation of the old French batre to hit, to beat, to strike. Though I admit that a batre kiln is a name more appropriate to a French pastry oven than a ceramic skill. 

[00:06:32] Pat Penny: Making me hungry. 

[00:06:34] Jason Cohen: How, how does that score in the irreverence for footnotes, side notes here in this book? 

[00:06:40] Pat Penny: Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a five, a solid five outta 10 on a reverence. You've got a few more spicy ones.

[00:06:46] Zongjun Li: Very deep etymology research. 

[00:06:51] Jason Cohen: Well. 

[00:06:51] Zongjun Li: That really confuses me 'cause when we're researching the name of such kiln, like that was actually the name for people calling it. So very confusing for me in the first place. 

[00:07:05] Jason Cohen: Yeah, Zongjun had thought it was just a lucky kiln. 

[00:07:09] Pat Penny: Very auspicious kiln.

[00:07:12] Jason Cohen: Deep, deep, deeply linked to to, to Chinese symbolism. Need a fire, 

[00:07:20] Zongjun Li: Downdraft, downdraft bat. 

[00:07:21] Jason Cohen: Need to fire a Yixing ware, use the bat symbol. 

[00:07:28] Pat Penny: Brings a whole new meaning to Batman. I like to read those comic now and just think about him as a, a serious Yixing collector and artist. That's how he earned his money.

[00:07:39] Jason Cohen: Wayne, Wayne Industry is maker of a pushed-bat kiln.

The pushed-bat kiln that we saw had a gigantic mechanism, huge mechanism in order to push these wares through. When people think about these kilns, these kilns could be a hundred meters long. Although the pushed-bats are usually a little bit shorter than them, maybe 60, 70 meters long and it is pushing stacks of Yixing saggars. Each that has 10, 20, 30 different Yixing teapots in it piled five high, 60 meters. So you're talking about a mechanism that can push more than a ton of weight.

[00:08:12] Pat Penny: Thousands of pounds, for sure. Yeah. And I mean even, even just those ceramic slabs, we didn't pick one up individually, but I assume they're quite heavy. 

[00:08:19] Jason Cohen: So this is, this is a major piece of industrial equipment. We're not talking about something, something that you hand crank or push with your feet. We're talking about something that's, that's able to apply thousands of pounds of force in order to move these wares through the kiln and do it under a very high temperature environment.

My next question, can you explain how tunnel kilns were the first instrumented kiln?

[00:08:43] Zongjun Li: Compared to dragon kiln or downdraft kiln, this is really the first kiln that applied a lot of mechanical equipments or industrialization mechanism into it. And we're not only just talking about the oil pressed mechanism that pushed the bats but also like temperature controls and regulations and also regulations of fire elements that were coal and sometimes heavy oil in the later stage of the time.

[00:09:12] Jason Cohen: And then natural gas. 

[00:09:14] Zongjun Li: And then natural gas. Eventually. 

[00:09:16] Jason Cohen: The coal loaded kilns, I, I don't believe had it, but everything after the coal loaded kilns had actual electronic instrumentation. It was the first kilns to have temperature gauges, the first kilns to have some types of PID controls in the most modern kilns.

What, what did this do? What kind of effect did this have on the skill of firing? Firing is still a skill? Did this diminish the skill? Did this move the skill from the individuals manning the kiln to the Yixing artists? What effect did this have sociologically on the practitioners of making Yixing teapots?

[00:09:50] Zongjun Li: It's certainly a diversified or segmentize the expertise, right? Just talking about firing using heavy oil alone. Heavy oil is not very easy to manage. Without proper heating in advance, heavy oil is very, very sticky. It can just clog the entire system.

So, you are going to have like some heavy oil management expertise on site too alongside with all the other Yixing makers or even kiln managers or even bat managers. Like, all of these slowly becoming a very, very diverse and complicated ecosystem almost. Instead of just in the past, one or two people can be able to manage a downdraft kiln very easily. 

[00:10:37] Pat Penny: I think a big difference is also the type of expertise. So, when we think about a dragon kiln or a downdraft kiln, you have somebody who, and probably multiple people on site, who are really conscious of the time and temperature that wares have been exposed to. So they're able to see and feel with their senses if a kiln is hitting the proper temperature that they want it to, they're able to see what, what kind of fuel source additions they need to be doing at what times. And they have to really actively be there, right? And present and paying attention to those things with their senses in order to manage the firing over the course of a day to multiple days.

Whereas now with electronic instrumentation, they're able to very clearly see, you know, it's not, oh, the kiln looks like it's 1,200 degrees. They're able to get an electronic output that's actually telling them what kind of fuel addition is needed or not needed and when the right timing of that might be. And as we get into PID control and systems that are in place for this, eventually you're having the fuel being managed by electronic instrumentation as well versus people loading it in at a specific time. So you really see the transformation of it from I think something that was quite, involved a degree of expertise and sensory kind of mastership of being able to see and experience these things and knowing when to apply your knowledge versus having the data readily available and systems that can act upon it versus the people acting upon it. 

[00:11:58] Jason Cohen: Is there a balance there? Have the Yixing artisans gained new skills by using this type of instrumentation or access to this data? Or has this just been a source of skill atrophy? The kilns fire themselves basically, at this point. They're computer controlled. 

[00:12:14] Pat Penny: I think the best artists still experiment. Many of the artists that we commission with and talk to, because of the increased consistency in some of these kilns, over time with experimentation, they've learned exactly what they're trying to achieve. And now they can do it with a consistency that probably could not have been achieved if they were to do it certainly a dragon kiln. I mean, we hear complaints about them from quite skilled artisans.

But even a downdraft kiln, electric, or wood fired, there's a degree of control particularly I'd say in the wood fired that they're not able to achieve. So through I think this mechanization and experimentation, the good artisans are still building new sets of skills.

[00:12:53] Jason Cohen: One of the ways that I think about this is both cooking and tea, people are notoriously, they overrate their skills at certain things, particularly telling time and how much tea they think they're using. So, Pat and I at least have had this conversation before. I now weigh all of the tea that I use and some people have positive or negative reactions to it, but what I do is I try to go for the dose in my hand and then I check my work on the scale. And I would say more often than not, I'm wrong. And anyone who's cooked with me, hot side fast cooking will know that I have a timer set to one minute, and every one minute the timer is going off. And it drives some people crazy. But if, then you ask them, okay, you, try to do this without the timer. Try to time one minute, and they'll be all over the place. And almost always, they'll be longer than a minute. They think a minute is longer than it is. Like calling a minute in a minute and a half or two minutes.

And so I think that these types of timings or these types of weighings or these types of interaction with instrumentation can be a source of skill atrophy if we were just to use the timer alone or just to put the tea on the scale immediately. But it can also be a source of positive feedback, developing a skill set through a positive feedback loop by consistently checking your work, saying to yourself, I, I believe that this is three grams and you, this was 4.5 grams. Right? And if, if you do that repeatedly enough, maybe you'll gain some ability to better estimate how much you're using without the scale. That was a little bit of inside, but... 

[00:14:24] Pat Penny: Yeah, but I think what you're saying is, the good artisans now have the data with this positive feedback loop in their experimentation. Right? So they can say that, I know that this saggar hit 1,170 degrees and that worked really well for the specific blend of clay that I was using. And, oh, I'm trying to achieve maybe a slightly shinier exterior or I'm trying to achieve a porosity that's slightly different, they can then change their experimental design from there. So certainly this is a positive feedback loop.

[00:14:52] Zongjun Li: Before the implementation of electric kiln, the artist first time can have some kind of quantifiable details of how their wares actually gets fired. 

[00:15:03] Jason Cohen: At a more precise level, certainly. I was actually about to say something almost the opposite of that, which is that this could be seen as a break from tradition, but actually there's always been some sense of timing using burning incense sticks or in China they say joss sticks, where the joss sticks took a pretty consistent amount of time to burn. Later, particularly during F1, joss sticks were seen as potentially religious connotations, which was a no-no for part of that time. So they actually smoked a cigarette, and the cigarette took approximately five, six minutes to burn for time sensitive operations.

But kilns have been using cones, right? Standing, leaning pieces of clay and watching the clay melt, you can determine approximately how much energy was in the kiln. It's not super exact. It varies and you only get it in certain placements and you can't see a kiln cone put into a saggar, so you don't know exactly what it is, right? But I see it less as a break in more of a continuation of this idea of collecting data to create these feedback loops of knowledge, which is necessary in order to gain skill. 

[00:16:06] Pat Penny: Just more consistent data basically over time and repeatable data. 

[00:16:10] Zongjun Li: And less incense being burned. Better for the environment. 

[00:16:14] Pat Penny: Let's save, let's save all that sandalwood, agar wood. Let's not burn it for timing.

[00:16:19] Zongjun Li: Just a side information. Yi zhu xiang or one joss stick of incense is usually half an hour. I think that's, the common understanding. 

[00:16:29] Jason Cohen: That's a lot of cigarettes. 

[00:16:33] Pat Penny: I think they're still using the cigarettes. It's just not for timing anymore. 

[00:16:37] Jason Cohen: You went from one joss stick to five cigarettes.

[00:16:40] Zongjun Li: Five cigarettes. 

[00:16:41] Jason Cohen: I hope it wasn't all one guy. 

[00:16:45] Pat Penny: No. They were all smoking five cigarettes. All of them. 

[00:16:48] Jason Cohen: Through with everyone together. Alright. Now, 

[00:16:51] Zongjun Li: Professional cigarette smokers as the timer. 

[00:16:56] Pat Penny: To be fair, this was one of actually when we went to the pushed-bat kiln that we had seen, that was one of the few places where I don't actually feel like I saw people smoking. I don't feel like I saw them smoking there. 

[00:17:06] Zongjun Li: So a lot of natural gas fuel sitting around itself. 

[00:17:10] Jason Cohen: Yeah. I wonder if they had like no smoking signs or something we didn't notice. Like do not smoke around all the liquified natural gas flowing through. 

[00:17:17] Pat Penny: We'll have to look at our pictures 'cause yeah, thinking back now, like that's definitely one of the spots where we didn't run into cigarette smoking. But like ore processing and teapot shaping and everything else, it's not like people were consistently smoking in their studios, but there's a lot of smoking going on and not inside the pushed-bat kiln kind of environment. 

[00:17:35] Jason Cohen: We finally have an answer to part of Joseph Needham's question. Why did timers come into the pushed-bat kilns? 

[00:17:41] Pat Penny: Safety considerations?

[00:17:44] Jason Cohen: No, no smoking. This is creative innovation. 

[00:17:49] Pat Penny: We cracked it here. We cracked it here first on Tea Technique. 

[00:17:53] Jason Cohen: Tunnel kilns in Yixing at the time of their adoption, circa 1965 were coal fired. Can you give our listeners an abbreviated developmental history of the fuel sources for tunnel kilns throughout their development in use in Yixing?

[00:18:07] Pat Penny: Yeah, I'm pretty sure it goes from black coal for a few years, shifting as we've mentioned earlier, into heavy oil. And then from heavy oil eventually we get into natural gas, which is what we're doing nowadays as well. 

[00:18:21] Jason Cohen: And I spend a lot of time in this chapter on reviewing, re-reviewing kiln atmosphere and how variations in atmosphere and the timing of atmosphere during a ware's firing can affect material properties. So how did these transitions, both to tunnel kilns and throughout these different fuel sources affect the kiln atmosphere and the resulting fired teapot's interaction with its material properties?

[00:18:46] Pat Penny: All three different sources of fuel have very different levels of complete combustion. Even shifting from like coal to heavy oil, I would assume that there's a, a lot more conversion and complete combustion occurring. So you create a much cleaner and less reducing kiln environment or more oxidizing kiln environments or neutral. And I'm sure as we shifted to natural gas too, you were getting an even more neutral combustion, right? So, more consistent color development, more consistent textural development as we're shifting fuel sources.

[00:19:20] Zongjun Li: It seems like a lot of people argue that heavy oil or at least a period of heavy oil tend to produce higher quality wares than wares produced from other fuel source era. I, I wonder why, actually. Is it the heavy oil tend to have the higher thermal value, which might result in a higher temperature, maybe? Do any of you have a guess?

[00:19:44] Jason Cohen: I'm not certain about the energy density of heavy oil, but I do know that the black hole that they were burning was really dirty. A lot of smoke, and it did not produce the correct atmosphere for the best Yixing wares. 

[00:19:59] Zongjun Li: A lot of smoky yaobian (窑变), I guess. 

[00:20:03] Jason Cohen: Because I've never heard anyone complain about liquified natural gas as a fuel source. People complain about various things about electric kilns and coal burning kilns. We've never really heard a sustained meaningful complaint about the use of liquified natural gas.

[00:20:22] Zongjun Li: Interesting.

[00:20:22] Pat Penny: I don't know. Yeah. That, that sounds like an area of further exploration for us. I, I certainly, I've heard the same thing, Zongjun, that there's a few years where people believe that some of the best pots were being fired with this heavy oil. But I can't think of a single reason why it should be better specifically from the fuel source. 

[00:20:41] Jason Cohen: My best working guess is that there was a big step up in quality with the switch from coal to heavy oil. And then there was a step down in quality with natural gas 'cause it coincided with the second major increase in production and the use of non master artisans and lesser wares flooding the market in the later periods towards the end of F1. That's my best guess is that the first is related to the tunnel kiln, and the second is, is timed with the tunnel kiln, but unrelated to that change. 

[00:21:14] Zongjun Li: Experiment proposal. Let's bribe the local Asian government and commission the tunnel kiln to reuse heavy oil again and do a side-by-side firing with gas kiln. And we tested. 

[00:21:26] Pat Penny: We just, we just need to find a government willing to try and export heavy oil into China. I think we, we know a couple people. We, we'll figure it out.

[00:21:35] Jason Cohen: In this chapter I write, the complete transition to tunnel kilns represents the point of full modernization for Yixing ceramic arts. With the conversion of zisha ware production to a continuous firing process, not only were the attributes of the kiln, including the fuel source, atmosphere, and time temperature curves changed. The firing process itself was adapted to the new standard of double firing, where each ware is fired twice throughout the kiln. These changes of the firing process taken together represent a sharp break with the artisanal batch process and single fired standard of the original art form. Do you agree with this assessment?

[00:22:12] Zongjun Li: I agree. 

[00:22:15] Pat Penny: Yeah. Boring answer. Yes. We, we've had the opportunity to test pots that are single versus double fired. And I think a lot of those pots showcase some of the differences between more artisanal and more modern craftsmanship. 

[00:22:28] Jason Cohen: With that said, then how can we explain the reasoning and the, the motivations for zisha artisans to move to double firing, and how does double firing change the material properties of the wares?

[00:22:40] Zongjun Li: Definitely, I would say the improvement is a much, much better fit of the tea pot and the lid. Because double firing allowed the wares to be fired in a way that it will be very tightly sealed together in the first place. And, you frequently will see people using a little wood hammer to remove the lid from the ware after the first fire. And then the lid and the teapot body will go through a process called zhengkou (整口), which mean basically you are mounting the lid on a, a rotating metal polish. And then you are going to very elegantly polish the lid so that the lid can be tightly fit back into the body of the teapot again. And then it will go through a second fire.

[00:23:25] Pat Penny: I would say a, a little good and a little bad. Thanks to double firing, I think there's consistency in the level of firing for a lot of teapots. So I don't think you expect a, a wild swing in performance from one pot of the same material from the same maker to another.

But I would say that, I do find double fired pots to have less interaction with the tea. And I find to have, for better or for worse, less effect from these double fired teapots. So sometimes that's good. If you're really looking for a teapot to have minimal interaction with your tea then a double fired teapot is fine.

But I think that you, you often run the risk of these pots being more than double fired. Sometimes modern pots are triple, four times fired depending on what the pot maker was trying to achieve, or what they think is the most important attribute. Sometimes visuals are the most important.

And so, with single fired you, you don't, I think, run the risk of these over fired teapots. You have a lot more interaction between tea and clay. And so you, you really are, I think, getting the experience of using a pot. I, I haven't really run into any single fired, over fired teapots. I don't know if you guys have, unless it was purposeful. 

[00:24:32] Zongjun Li: It would be very hard. 

[00:24:34] Jason Cohen: Antique over fired. But never, never tunnel kiln, over fired. 

[00:24:40] Zongjun Li: Probably a misplacement of the ware in the kiln back in the days. But now 

[00:24:46] Pat Penny: You do get, you do get under fired, single fired wares. But, those are things where if you're buying in person you can touch the pot, hear the sound, and you're, you're gonna have an idea if it's under fight or not.

[00:24:56] Zongjun Li: Yeah, well, multiple fires tend to vitrify the teapot more and frequently the second fired is in a different kiln than the first fired. Sometimes it's electric, sometimes it's wood fired to achieve a certain aesthetic outlook and certain clay performance. So that's very interesting to see.

[00:25:19] Jason Cohen: Yeah, there's certain, there's certainly a lot of experimentation on the mix of firings. Historically, of course, it was all double fired in the tunnel kiln, with the second firing a little bit cooler.

My, my leading theory is that the issue with the double firing is of course the vitrification, but it's also the lack of the production of surface texture, which is caused by the fluctuation in atmosphere and the non flat heat curve, right? That a normal kiln, which is loaded multiple times with fuel, goes through a slightly sinoidal increase and decrease, and those little temperature fluctuations with the variations in atmosphere served to promote surface texture, which is the nucleation points and the catalyst for a lot of Yixing's interaction with tea in, in my theory.

[00:26:11] Pat Penny: That's important because I think what we're trying to say is that we don't just like old teapots 'cause they're old, but we do think there's more of a material effect and we think that this single versus double firing and, and as you mentioned kiln loading, change in atmosphere, et cetera is a hypothesis for why that exists.

[00:26:28] Jason Cohen: Zongjun you had started talking about zhengkou, you, you used the word polish. Most people use the word grind. Do you wanna explain a little bit more about the process of zhengkou? You, you had said that it's fired, it gets ground down to size. Can you explain when and where? And then there's a couple of intermediate processes before it's put back in the kiln and fired again.

[00:26:49] Zongjun Li: Yeah. After the first fired, where taken out from the kiln, it will first get inspect of certain imperfections. So sometimes you have some small explosions or chips happening throughout the first fire. This is a time for you to do a little bit of a makeup. Sometimes you can add some clay back to the ware to smooth the surface out a little bit. And then, the lid sometimes are too tightly sealed with the body, so you need a little wood hammer to very gently hammer the lid out from the body of the teapot. And then it will be mounted on a thing called tiequan (铁圈) or gangquan (钢圈). It basically means a iron ring or a steel ring. So this is basically a, a sanding mechanism. So, the rim is applied with quartz or different grain size of the materials so that you can carefully sand the surface of the lid or the mouth of the teapot body so that you can very carefully adjust the diameter of these components so that they can be a better fit with each other. And then after the process the teapots will be collected back to a, a tray. And then it will put back into the same kiln or different kiln for the second fire.

[00:28:07] Jason Cohen: Are there any negative effects of this? Or is this, is it just an aesthetic touchup and it's totally benign? 

[00:28:14] Pat Penny: I think for the most part it's an aesthetic touchup, but sometimes, depending on who the artisan is, there might be different clay applied after zhengkou. So if let's say small iron pieces are removed or a little bit of slip needs to be reapplied, it might not be the same clay that was making up the interior of the teapot body. And that might have a different material interaction with your tea. It's possible it's an inferior clay. 

[00:28:36] Zongjun Li: Yeah. Like for artists that are more attentive, they frequently will carry the same clay back to the zhengkou studio and apply the touch up themselves. But if you commission the process totally to a zhengkou studio, you are you don't know what you're getting served at the end.

[00:28:56] Pat Penny: I think zhengkou was one of the things I didn't mentally picture at all when I was thinking about the Yixing process making a pot before I had physically gone to Yixing. I think I had read many guides on like how a Yixing is made and all that. But that was a process that just had never crossed my mind that needed to be done.

[00:29:14] Jason Cohen: They left out the industrial sanding. 

[00:29:16] Pat Penny: Yeah, the guy sitting there, also not smoking a cigarette from what I remember, but just with the foot pedal, sanding down a teapot lid. 

[00:29:25] Jason Cohen: I think a lot of the books are a little idealized. For high quality makers, I don't have an issue with zhengkou other than it requires a double firing. There's a lot of talk about loose lids and why lid fits perfect now all because of zhengkou. But I think really the important part of this transition is the double firing versus the zhengkou process.

My pent ultimate question, still talking about technology. How did saggars change with the modern industrialization of tunnel kiln firings? We think of saggars are a form of technology, a form of kiln technology they co-developed with the kilns that they were used in. How did saggars change with this modernization? 

[00:30:08] Zongjun Li: One thing that you see different is that it not only prevent the process, what we call re huo (惹火), so basically the flame kind of affect the surface color texture of the wares, it prevent the wares from touching the flame directly. And you see variations of saggars now, like, you have open saggar, which you have a small window or a gap in between the saggars to allow the wares access to a higher temperature. And you have completely sealed saggars which the wares sitting inside those saggars are tend to be a few degrees cooler. So this will allow artists to even further fine tuning the temperature required for their wares. 

[00:30:49] Pat Penny: Additionally, saggars were really standardized with tunnel kilns. So, the inlet and the size of the aperture for the actual kiln part, you have saggars that are developed to fit a very specific amount of Yixings within them, and then to be stacked to a very specific height so that it can fit within the tunnel kiln. So you start to see really, I think a lot of standardization of kind of inputs and outputs on how many pots are gonna go in a sagger, how much can you expect coming out. So I think it's just kind of another step in the industrialization and modernization of, of this as a an industrial good versus an artisan batch product.

[00:31:28] Jason Cohen: My last question, the majority of contemporary Yixing wares today are fired in a tunnel kiln. The three of us, of course, visited that pushed-bat kiln in Dingshu that we've mentioned. What was that like seeing the tunnel kiln, being around that tunnel kiln? 

[00:31:43] Pat Penny: Hot. 

[00:31:46] Zongjun Li: Very hot. A lot of these wares after getting forged in the first place, they're still wet. So there is this drying process before it gets fired and you see trays and trays of wares just surrounding the tunnel kiln to have access to the residual heat, to using that heat to speed up the drying process. This is not just alongside the kiln. There is a second story above the kiln and it's almost like a Russian sauna house. Like, you see mountains of ware sitting on that stack right above the kiln to get dry. That was quite amazing to, to watch. 

[00:32:27] Pat Penny: Yeah, it was a little bit of a Yixing heaven. I mean, you, you walk in there and there's literally thousands of teapots, just in saggars here and there. And we were joking before we started recording this episode about the biome and the ecosystem of tunnel kilns. But it really is, so we, we visited this one specific tunnel kiln and all around it is zhengkou studios and other studios that are involved in very specific sub parts of the Yixing teapot manufacturing system. And so we're walking through these kind of alleys that are leading to the tunnel kiln itself. There's teapots everywhere. There's people involved with teapot making everywhere, and so it kind of felt like this little community or a village all sprung around the kiln which was, was really cool. I guess maybe less than a community or a village, but I mean, it's, it's like a, a crafting studio, really large industrial crafting studio. 

[00:33:15] Jason Cohen: A kiln 

[00:33:15] Zongjun Li: Almost feel like a Miyazaki movie. Like all of these little sub studios surrounding this big mechanical tunnel kiln. And then all these fires and steams coming out from every side. And it's not just zhengkou studios, they're talking about like all of these decoration studios, all of these metal pieces studios, all of these mounting studios. It's quite amazing to us. You can almost see the full picture of the Yixing industry in one kiln.

[00:33:48] Pat Penny: Yeah, Miyazaki is a great comparison. It does feel a little Spirited Away. But man, it's also quite inconspicuous when you look off the side of the road. 'Cause when we pulled over, I think there was a chicken restaurant right next to it. Like, I thought we were stopping for food. I didn't know we were going to a kiln site, and then we start walking through all these little alleyways, right? And just, just as you said Zongjun, there was a little magic to the experience. 

[00:34:08] Jason Cohen: It's a reversion to the traditional kiln site where everything is built up around the kiln and the kiln becomes the, the community center. I think what I took away from that experience is just still how much of an industry Yixing is. We, we think of these Yixing tea pots as collectors items and we are very focused on, on which ones we purchase and how many we purchase and what types and the clay and everything. But there are millions of these pots being made and being shipped around the world. And when you think of the full scale of the industry, like yes, some of them are rare. Yes, some of them are collectors, some of them are better or worse than others.

But you know, maybe it's rare in the way that diamonds are rare in that there's a control on the supply, not a, from middleman, not 

[00:34:55] Zongjun Li: actual rarity. 

[00:34:56] Jason Cohen: Yeah. 

[00:34:58] Pat Penny: Yeah, I think we've talked about this at length, but as we were first getting into tea, I think Jason, you and I predominantly in the West, heard the myth of like, there's no more mining of Yixing clay and there's no more clay and it's gonna get rarer and rarer and pots are gonna get so expensive. And, just being there in the tunnel kiln site, let alone seeing ore, and all that other stuff at different makers' places. But just being at the tunnel kiln and seeing how many thousands of teapots were there on that day being fired, yeah, really changes your perception of the, the rarity of Yixing teapots.

[00:35:29] Jason Cohen: Why hundreds would go down in a, in any sunken ship, hundreds of teapots. Dynastic era, of course. 

[00:35:35] Pat Penny: Some somehow you still bring it back to shipwreck ware. 

[00:35:38] Jason Cohen: Yeah, shipwreck ware fan club. I, I, I, I lied. Actually, that brings me to my real final question which is, do you use, collect and prefer F1 or contemporaries zisha wares from a tunnel kiln?

[00:35:53] Pat Penny: I would say, it's very hard to know for sure that what you have, if it's before a certain period, is tunnel kiln or not. I guess by year, what, mid 1970s, you can be pretty sure. But I, I think notoriously have very few F1 teapots. I've got like two in my collection. So no.

[00:36:11] Zongjun Li: Yeah. After all these horror stories that I've been hearing from you and also from other people in the community I've been very intentionally avoiding buying any F1 teapot or making any purchase of any claim to F1 teapot. 

[00:36:27] Jason Cohen: I have only one F1 teapot that I use, and I have no way of knowing if it's tunnel kiln. I think it is, I think it's early tunnel kiln, probably. 

[00:36:36] Zongjun Li: But is it coal fired or is it heavy oil fired 

[00:36:39] Jason Cohen: Oil. This is, obviously, it's in my collection. This is

[00:36:42] Zongjun Li: Build the oily texture. Right. Like that's 

[00:36:45] Jason Cohen: Actually I think this one's an early one 'cause it's slightly dry textured and maybe even a tad under fired. Although I still love the, the pop. 

[00:36:53] Pat Penny: There is something to be said though as we talk about the modernization and industrialization improvement in processes efficiency, yeah, like the usability of modern wares versus some of the F1s that I've had the chance to handle, it is, it is very much luck of the draw on getting an F1 that actually performs nicely. Not just the interaction of tea and clay, but, but the actual craftsmanship. Being able to pour well. If you can find ones that actually pour well, have decent fits, are held well and feel well in your hand, that's an accomplishment in and of itself.

[00:37:25] Jason Cohen: So I guess across the board, we all said, no, we don't go particularly looking for this, although we, none of us have any issues with it. 

[00:37:34] Pat Penny: Just issues with the craftsmanship. Yeah, I mean, they're, they're, they're definitely not my best pots. And I, I've gotten them from quite reputable dealers and they're, they're not my preferred pots.

[00:37:45] Jason Cohen: Well, everyone 

[00:37:47] Pat Penny: Can we, can we really end with bashing F1? I don't know if we can end there, I think you need to add another question. The F1 fan boys are not gonna be happy with us. 

[00:37:56] Jason Cohen: I mean, we all did admit to owning F1 teapots. It's not that we dislike them. It's that we would just rather own a LQER (late Qing, Early Republic) or a full on Qing dynasty teapot than 

[00:38:09] Pat Penny: Or I think, we've made the argument before that very well made modern teapots often offer better interaction and better performance than many F1s. Not all, but many. 

[00:38:20] Jason Cohen: Yeah. I mean, we are, we are purposely commissioning a single fired, tunnel kiln wares that seem to perform quite nicely. So in a small way, we are. Those are in comparison sets. So in a small way, we are collecting, we are using and collecting tunnel kiln wares. 

[00:38:38] Pat Penny: All yours now, just 100, 100 easy payments of 99 99 

[00:38:46] Jason Cohen: Subscribers only. No discounts, no trading. Comes with your own NFT permanently tying that teapot to you.

[00:38:55] Zongjun Li: Oh my God. 

[00:38:55] Pat Penny: We, we also offer tattoos of that teapot directly on your skin anywhere.

[00:39:01] Jason Cohen: Well, everyone, that's all the time that we have for today. Thank you for joining us in this edition of Tea Technique Editorial Conversations. Please join us again for our next conversation on Shuttle Kilns. 

Chapter Discussion Sections: 

• 00:00 Introduction 
• 02:23 Building Connections in Wuyi 
• 05:29 Exploring Wuyi's Scenic and Non-Scenic Areas 
• 08:16 The Importance of Verified References in Tea Tasting 
• 15:18 Fertilization Practices and Ecological Areas 
• 21:33 Coffee and Tea in Wuyi Village 
• 25:07 Challenges in Accessing High-Quality Tea 
• 30:29 The Struggle of Understanding Wuyi Tea 
• 35:27 Yancha Tasting and Affordability 
• 39:09 Shaokao and Papaya Discussions

Transcript

[00:00:05] Jason Cohen: Hello everyone. I'm Jason Cohen, the author of an Introduction to the Art and Science of Chinese Tea Ceremony. Today we're doing a bonus episode on my Wuyi Revisited Trip 2025, Return to Wuyi. Here to join me for this conversation is the editorial team, Patrick Penny. 

[00:00:23] Pat Penny: Hey, hey. 

[00:00:24] Jason Cohen: And Zongjun Li.

[00:00:26] Zongjun Li: Hello. Hello. 

[00:00:27] Jason Cohen: Pat, Zongjun, this was not one of the Tea Technique research trips. I was on a personal trip for a month in China, and I went to Wuyi and I wound up doing a bunch of tea things and I wrote about it. 

[00:00:40] Pat Penny: Yeah, I remember talking to you and kind of joking that, that this was just gonna be your solo research trip, and you were like, no, no, uh, I'm only gonna do like one tea thing, you know. Na, Nancy will only like, let me get away with one tea thing. And lo and behold, like 20 plus pages of trip report later, you did like a ton of tea things, and this is like one of a few different areas you went to and did tea stuff. So this was like a huge solo tea trip. So really like just, what the heck? Why'd you do this without us? 

[00:01:08] Jason Cohen: Well, 30 plus pages. Zongjun, you were invited to meet me in China. But 

[00:01:13] Zongjun Li: I wasn't in China at the time, so good timing, man. 

[00:01:17] Jason Cohen: But 30 plus pages. We went to Chengdu and we did a bunch of tea stuff there, went to Lushan and did a bunch of tea stuff there, Jingdezhen. But the one that really stuck out, the one that I wrote about, was Wuyi. And it was a very different experience this time.

I think that there was a clear level up in the level of preparation, who we know, who I know who I was able to get introductions to. But there was also just a much better understanding of the terroir, and what was going on in the local tea scene. It felt like I got clued into a lot more things that were still a bit on... we, we peeled back the curtain a little bit on our last research trip, and I feel like this time I really got to step behind the curtain and see some of the puppet mastery that goes on in Wuyi. I don't know if, I hope that's shown through on the trip report. 

[00:02:20] Pat Penny: Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

I can tell that you got to do a ton more stuff. Speaking of connections and having a different level of connections, what was different this year? It's literally like a year later. How did you make so many more connections in that one year in that short span of time?

[00:02:34] Jason Cohen: Yeah. Primary contact is still someone who we met last year just being there. You and I passed 

[00:02:41] Pat Penny: Talk, talking a little bit more about that. 

[00:02:42] Jason Cohen: Yeah. You know, Wuyi's an interesting place and a lot of people are seriously into tea and a lot of people are very showy about being into tea. And just like anywhere, some of them are real charen tea people with real access and deep roots in a place, and some of them showed up a year ago and bought some tea and opened up a street facing shop.

So, you have to be quite careful and diligent about assessing who it is you're dealing with. But Pat and I got very, very lucky. And we met someone who turned out to be a true charen, and it was towards the end of the trip last year. So we exchanged information, we shared some tea together, and then I spent a year really developing that relationship, sharing writing, exchanging some tea samples, exchanging tasting notes. This was a, a full court press on showing that I was serious while at the same time doing my diligence on who I was dealing with. So then I wrote back and I said, you know, I'll come to Wuyi this year if, if you'll receive me. And I have other friends and other things to do there, but if you wanna spend a, a few days drinking tea and showing me some of the work that you're doing, I would love to do that. And, thankfully she said yes. And so that was really a key to serious access. And then we met with other people there. We met with our friends who do light roasting. I got new introductions to a legacy family that owns land and plots in the park that has a historical production facilities and historical familial lands. That was a very kind introduction from another tea friend.

And so just, you know, the network in a way builds itself. But in other ways it's definitely a concerted effort. And you need to be at a certain level, both in Chinese language skills and in your own tea knowledge in order to be accepted and welcomed in a group like that. So, I feel quite lucky in getting such access. 

[00:04:52] Pat Penny: Yeah. And that, you know, new-ish contact that you had worked on over the last year. I saw Zongyi looked a little confused when we were talking about this person 'cause I think we, actually Zongjun, I think you did meet her, but we didn't drink tea with her until the night that you were dead.

[00:05:08] Zongjun Li: We had some other beverages before with her. I do remember that. I was overly shou at that point. 

[00:05:17] Pat Penny: Maocha murdered at that point. Dying in the hotel room and Jason and I just like let's go back to our usual place. And lo and behold, the whole time, there was a charen there.

[00:05:26] Jason Cohen: Yeah. 

[00:05:27] Zongjun Li: Very cool. 

[00:05:29] Pat Penny: Other than connections being leveled up this time around, what do you feel like was one or two major things that were just different on this trip from our previous trip? 

[00:05:38] Jason Cohen: The weather. The park wasn't closed. 

[00:05:40] Pat Penny: I, I might've been hinting for that one. Yeah. 

[00:05:42] Jason Cohen: Yeah. The park wasn't closed and flooding. That made a really big difference. And actually, when the park's not closed and flooding, it's possible to make some really great progress. Like you can really hike at a good clip through Huiyuan Keng or Niulan Keng or any of the, most of the great vistas and sites. They're pretty well paved and signposted. Although I will say even in Wuyi, it is ridiculously hard to find a map of anything. There will be like one tiny trail map with no details when you get to a, a trailhead. 

[00:06:19] Zongjun Li: Probably on purpose. 

[00:06:21] Jason Cohen: Yeah. And there is really no online maps of Wuyi. It is incredibly frustrating. But it is quite easy to get around and you know, when the park's not flooding, you can see a lot in even a pretty compressed timeframe. We pretty frequently had afternoon meetings right after lunchtime. So wake up, hike through one of the areas of the park, grab a quick bite and then go meet our contacts. So it was a pretty efficient way to do it. So that was one major difference.

The other major difference is how much time I spent outside of the scenic area. We always think of Wuyi as this one contained, what is it, 60 square kilometer National Scenic Area, but actually the Wuyi park is much, much larger than just the scenic area and there's absolutely no infrastructure for tourists or for tea travelers, tea adventures, whatever you wanna call us out there. So, you have this whole network and bus system and trail system in the scenic area, and you have none of that outside the scenic area. There's no signposts. There's nothing telling you where you are. There is a bunch of guards and gates to prevent not just foreigners, but even Chinese nationals without the right permits and permissions. And so I spent a whole lot more time outside of the scenic area in the National Ecological Protection area looking at other great growing areas of tea that are also on Danxia (丹霞) land forms that don't have quite the name cache and in some cases are somewhat purposely unnamed or less named or less promoted than the scenic area itself.

[00:07:59] Pat Penny: So you know, I think we'll talk a little bit more about outside the park and hear more of your experience about that as we go through our discussion. I definitely do want to hear about what you saw again this year that may be kind of affirmed our findings from last year, what you saw this year within the park that maybe gave you some hope.

Before we get to both of those, let's talk about verified references and why it's important to have a well stocked wine closet of like DRC and Lafite Rothschild. 

[00:08:27] Jason Cohen: Domaine De La Romanee Conti is difficult even for me to purchase. Rothschild much more available. 

[00:08:34] Pat Penny: No Huang Ying (黄英) to sell or trade for some DRC? 

[00:08:37] Jason Cohen: I'd consider it.

Well, you know, a cake of Huang Ying goes a lot longer than a bottle of DRC. I mean, my goes to is Clos de la Roche. That's right there on the price, quality, availability scale in my book. But the thing is, and in the, in the intention of question is what does it mean to have verified references, right?

Without tasting wines like that, can you really say that you've had grand cru French wine? Can you really say that you've had God-tier wine of any type? And the answer to that in many ways is no. The ability to pull out what's nuanced and what's special is a learned skill. And it's something that takes repeat exposure to flavor and repeat pathways of mind. Just like any sport you perform as you practice, in tasting, you perform as you practice, and you're only going to perform as well as your standards and your references.

We joke about these grand cru wines, but at least in those cases there is a somewhat agreed on ranking, right? No one's out there saying oh, no, Chateau Lafite Rothschild, that wine sucks. And I'm sure there's one person out there and you don't wanna share wine with them. But generally with few exceptions, the French A.O.C. is considered to be acceptable. It's considered to be something that you can trust. Right? Everyone knows Chablis and first growth Chablis is better than cru Chablis, but that's due to weird reason. Some people would argue some early climate change and differences in soil composition and other things. But you know, with the exception of stuff like that, you at least have this ranking system that you can trust and you can verify.

With tea, there's nothing. And so a lot of people are getting yancha that's either is zhengyan (正岩), but it's lower end zhengyan, burnt to the crisp, or river tea or a 1-year-old fresh planting, fertilized summer growth and thinking that this is what the tea is supposed to taste like. Or it's something that's yancha style grown from outside the core area or even the outer area, and doesn't have these telltale signs. And so you get into this situation where people are training themselves, not just without references, but with no references. And it causes a very strange preference drift. And it causes people to miss out when they are exposed to great tea. Without being clued into what it is that makes a tea special, they're prone to miss out on the nuances that make a tea special. So I would say, if there's anything to invest in, it's having verified and trustable references. And that is much, much harder with yancha than it is with most other classes or types of tea. I would say that, we've had teachers in the past who have broken out God tier yancha in the past. But it was never something that we could ourselves have until this year really leveling up from even the stuff that I thought was pretty good. We rate on a seven point scale. Things that I was, we were giving sixes and sevens and now, that's gotten crunched down and what we have access to now is really a step up. So, 

[00:12:10] Zongjun Li: We kind of feel the same way last time too, right? Like this kind of, I would say ground truth almost become a secret teaching. Like, there's no universal vocabulary or references for people to have like actual conversation with each other. It's almost like lacking a vocabulary system for people to communicate 'cause people are using basically different references that they see as truth. It might not be real yancha, but the person you know, across the table might actually think that, they had real yancha or real zhengyan, and that's what they believe in. And, that's almost everyone is living their own simulacra and they're talking over each other. It's, it's very difficult. 

[00:12:56] Jason Cohen: That's certainly the case in the West. The thing that really at times bothers me is, you know, when people dismiss laocong (老丛) or dismiss the health of the environment. Things that look pretty must be healthy. You know, the idea that all of these products in disparate categories from different cultures around the world have placed value on old tree agricultural goods, right? Whether it's olives, whether it's grapes, whether it's agave cactuses, whether it's heirloom, older varieties of apples or pears or fruits, tobacco plants, right? All of these disparate, separate differently incentivized cultures and idioculture and agricultural systems have come to the same conclusion that the older trees, the older plants offer something that the younger plants don't. And older plants are always going to be in the minority for tons of various reasons, but this idea that people trained on a Western palette and what's available in the Western market and yancha are gonna come in and say, oh, well I've tried some laocong and I didn't think it was really better or worth the price premium to the xiaoshu (小树) trees. Right? That's what really gets me to go on a rant that, well, you haven't had grand cru yancha, right? You don't have any verified references. You actually haven't even had what is real laocong. Do you actually know the age of the trees or where the trees were from, or how those trees were processed? You still have fertilized laocong trees right by the main pathways. This is not one or nothing, but there's a whole system that goes into this promotion and there's this whole system of knowledge that is, particularly even more than puer, particularly in yancha, is focused on saying, hey, this is rare, this is special. This is something that you can't get again, and you should buy it from us because we're the ones who have it. And it's so very rarely true. If it was true, why would they be promoting it? Why wouldn't they sell it for double the dollar per gram, right? In China, where, you know, if you have it, you could sell it instantly. So, that gets me pretty riled up. 

[00:15:16] Zongjun Li: Interesting. One thing that we did notice is how much fertilizer was used in the park area last time, and all of the plants were shooting out shoots in the middle of the summer day. And it was really, really unnatural to see how plants can behave like that. Do you see that kind of practice being used in other regions that you visit this time, like outside of the proper park control area? Because in those areas, you are not necessarily allowed to plant new trees, right? So the only way you can boost up production is by boosting up per unit production. 

[00:15:53] Jason Cohen: Yeah, per unit production. 

[00:15:54] Zongjun Li: You can only use the existing trees but it's not necessarily the case elsewhere. Yeah. 

[00:16:00] Jason Cohen: So to the east is lower end non danxia. That's where you get like Wuyi style tea going east of Wuyi National Park. But going west, going particularly northwest, you get into some still danxia land forms around the Nine Bend River, which stretches for kilometers and kilometers before even reaching the park. And that's in the Nine Bend Stream Ecological Protection Area, which hence the name. The Ecological Protection Area has much stricter rules around what types of fertilizers and how much fertilizers and what you're allowed to plant. And then you have the National Nature Reserve, which is much higher altitude and much less tea is planted there.

So, going into the Nine Bend Stream Ecological Area, can you find places that have seriously tilled and fertilized and planted new plantations? Down by the river, you can, there's still river tea, right? Which is never gonna sell at a price premium. It's still gonna be on floodplains. But once you're outside of the river, no, the levels of agricultural intensity and fertilization is less. It's not none. You still have people who are trying to make a living off of a limited and constrained planting of tea, but you're much more likely to find individuals and entire villages that have collectively decided that they're gonna go a hundred percent non-certified organic, but organic, biodynamic, non fertilization. The ideas in many of those villages, it's much closer to what we saw in Yiwu than it is to what we see in Wuyi village, Wuyi proper. 

[00:17:34] Pat Penny: So how did people, 'cause you worked, I think this time with a bunch of people who were not looking specifically at the zhengyan area tea, but looking out at these areas that we were just discussing. How do they discuss these teas or talk about these teas or market these teas even? Obviously with you, they didn't have to market. They're just talking and tasting. But how do they approach this like as a business model? 'Cause it's not zhengyan tea and that's probably easy to talk about, but they have to build this nuanced story about why this tea is worth it or better or different. 

[00:18:00] Jason Cohen: Yeah, it's a good question. What happened when I was there is they would just cycle these teas onto the tasting. You know, start with a zhengyan tea and then move to a different tea and then move to a totally outside zhengyan area. And it would just be side by side, one after another in sequence. And usually the introduction to a tea like that and particularly as I started to get more and more clued into this, and having been on these trips, you guys know that I start every tasting with a hundred questions, but you know, they would generally say, this is an ecological tea or this is a natural environment tea. They would, they were pretty specific about calling out the wholesomeness of the environment and being explicit that this is not from within the zhengyan. So that, that was pretty, it wasn't something that was kept secret. It's almost an open secret amongst higher end Wuyi practitioners right now that the park is being over extracted, too much fertilizer, too many tea plants and too small of an area. Which is not to say that there's no good park tea. There certainly, there certainly is. But I think there's been a, an awakened realization about this. And maybe, this might be putting, this might be going too far, but maybe this is now like when people in Yiwu (易武) or people who like Yiwu tea are now saying, oh, well let's look in Laos, or people who like Menghai (勐海) tea, let's look in Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia. But maybe the Laos, you know, maybe that's going a step too far, but the idea that there's more there, that they don't have to follow the strict definition of lines on a map. The map is not the territory is, I think really started to take hold in at least a portion of the tea world. Cer certainly not everyone.

[00:19:51] Zongjun Li: Are there any new geographic identities slowly being formed, or have you observed any places being repetitively talked about? 

[00:20:02] Jason Cohen: Yeah. Directly north of the park. Within sight of the park. Like you just see, like there's a whole, very natural area, directly north of the park. Like you can see it from the park and everyone knows that area. Everyone likes that area. That's basically considered to be true zhengyan despite being outside of a line on a map. But that, that one's held differently 'cause that one's been that way for like 15, 20 years. 

[00:20:27] Zongjun Li: Huh, is it like a new zhengyan kind of a, 

[00:20:31] Jason Cohen: Yeah. Like, like new zhengyan? Yeah, like zhengyan north but everyone knows that one's not hidden in secret and fun discovery. That's like, ah, okay. It's that spot. 

[00:20:41] Zongjun Li: Oh yeah, that place. Interesting. So over those tasting sessions, other than, you know, your contact all the charens and maybe their friends, were there any buyers or like consumers being part of the tasting? And if so, like, what were their opinions?

[00:21:00] Jason Cohen: They had some other non-local friends who at various points had joined us. But I would say that those non-local friends were more, they took more of a role of pure student. They tended to just accept what the teacher in that case and the primary contact was saying. But there were a lot of them who were very dedicated to yancha. People who come back every year to harvest, to buy, to taste. Yeah, it was quite a nice group of people.

Outside of that when I was not with the core charen group that I know, what I mostly saw was, you know, like walking into a random coffee tea house in Wuyi. Actually, it's really fun, weird experience to go and drink coffee in Wuyi. Really high-end coffee shops in Wuyi Village tourist town directly across from the zhengyan. 

[00:22:00] Zongjun Li: Boy. Really? 

[00:22:01] Jason Cohen: Yeah.

[00:22:01] Pat Penny: Well, we had gone to like one place last year that was okay. I don't think we found too much great coffee. What, what did you find this year? 

[00:22:09] Jason Cohen: No, I found a better one. Actually, I don't think it was the same place. Was it like a brutalist place? 

[00:22:13] Pat Penny: Yeah, it was near a friend's bar and super strange. 

[00:22:16] Jason Cohen: Yeah. It leveled up. And now it had great Yunnan coffee. Yeah, it was, it was pretty good.

But going, going there even places like that have tea. Right? And so of course like, okay, I order coffee. And we order a tea. So one tea, one coffee. Coffee's pretty good, a higher end Yunnan coffee. And the tea was by US standards amazing, by random whole leaf tea in China standards, if I was not in a tea place, I'd say that's not terrible. But you know, to be in Wuyi and drinking that, it was a bit charry, it was a bit crunchy. It had some well-developed Maillard reaction and caramelization going. It was sweet from the baking. These are the nicest things I could say about young tree Shui Xian burnt to a crisp.

Was it real Wuyi? I mean, I didn't get a headache from it. I didn't feel any jaw tightness. My throat didn't clench, right. I didn't sip down the whole tea, but was this good tea? No. I guess part of the question, part of the reason that I bring this up is because the idea of what is good is a difficult question even in Wuyi, even from people who are there, right?

And so I grabbed out, I have my thermos with me. I grabbed out a packet of my tea and asked for some boiling water for the thermos. And I was like, oh actually, do you have a scissor? Can you open the tea? She opens the tea, she takes a big smell of it before putting it in the thermos. And she's like, huh. Pretty good. I was like that's better. 

[00:23:49] Pat Penny: Game respect game. 

[00:23:50] Jason Cohen: Yeah. Game respect game. It was funny. 

[00:23:52] Pat Penny: That's neither tou or shou. 

[00:23:54] Jason Cohen: It's just interesting that you know that they weren't serving great tea, and yet the person behind the bar could tell that a tea that I was carrying around myself was superior. So, it's pretty difficult to have an understanding of the skill levels that's going on. I would say somewhere there was a whole big group of Europeans that went on some tea making experience in Wuyi. Then they were out drinking beer at night and you could hear them and carrying on, and it seemed like a nice enough group, right? I never, I didn't talk to 'em. I don't know what group it was. But it was also pretty clear from just who they were with, that they were being taken on a, a tea making tour and they were all gonna go home with some tea, but it wasn't going to be primo, you know, three plus dollar a gram zhengyan tea. 

[00:24:52] Zongjun Li: They might be actually end up paying for that price. 

[00:24:56] Jason Cohen: They might have paid $3 a gram.

[00:24:58] Pat Penny: So I, I think last year we had almost nothing but negative things to say. This time you had a much better experience and your takeaways are quite different. Where do you frame Wuyi in your relation to it now and how you see yourself approaching it as, as we go forward and potentially go back for another research trip?

[00:25:17] Jason Cohen: Yeah. We, we definitely have to go back for another research trip. Wuyi is such a hard one because so many people have such a stake in the mythology and the hyper real and the merchant myths of it.

I think something that really stood out to me and you, you started to talk about this pattern. You hinted at the question was just back to back going Yiwu to Wuyi and seeing the difference in nature, the level of difference in the natural environment and the care for the land makes it really difficult to openly approach and accept the common practices in Wuyi.

There's a real sense of the difference in just the agricultural practices. It's hard to take claims of terroir superiority seriously if they're ripping up the trees every 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, no longer than 30 years laying down young trees that are gonna start to be harvested in two years, doused with fertilizer. It's difficult to take this idea of the superior terroir seriously.

Which again, I keep going back to, it's not to say it doesn't exist. It does. It's just not available. It's just you can't buy it at almost any price, right? You have to know a guy who knows the guy. You have to have a, you know, family connection. You have to be a repeat buyer. Even if you were willing to pay two or three or five times, what someone else was willing to pay. They have other people that are willing to bid it up and they're more likely to be consistent buyers. There'd be people who have been buying from them for the last decade. Or longer and have kept up with the price increases. So why would they take tea away from them for that relationship? We have the same problem with danzhu (单株). We can't just waltz up and be like we'd like some Mengsong (勐宋) danzhu. 

[00:27:16] Pat Penny: We can, but just like all the other laoban who do that, we'll end up with some random danzhu tree that might not actually be what you hope to pay for when you're paying for danzhu.

[00:27:26] Jason Cohen: Yeah, I mean, that's true, that's true. If we go to Gua Feng Zhai, we'll get a quote unquote danzhu tree. But, Mengsong? I don't think we'll get anything. 

[00:27:34] Zongjun Li: Some lao paca.

[00:27:36] Pat Penny: This looks a little different. This is some crunchy leaves.

So Jason, there's on my mind at least two more things I need to ask about, and you can combine this answer, but what was the shaokao scene like this time and what's the deal with papaya? 

[00:27:52] Jason Cohen: Yeah, we'll come back to papaya. Actually, before we move on to those questions, I wanted to ask you guys, 'cause I've been doing a lot of the talking, not being on this trip, reading the trip report, what was it that stood out to you? It was just a year since we were there together, and this was so different and I hope you think it was a well researched, well thought through report, but what was the takeaways that you got from it and what is different about your takeaways having been there just a year ago versus the readership? What is the readership not seeing when they haven't set foot in the zhengyan themselves? 

[00:28:34] Pat Penny: Yeah. I think for me, damn, what a difference a year makes. Like, I wish I was on this research trip with you and not the last one. But, reading through this report I think gave me a lot of hope on what the Wuyi book could look like. I think after we came outta the trip last year, I was like, how, how the fuck are we gonna write a book about this? Like, how do we even continue to learn about this?

And so it, it was really good to see not only through the better connections, the access to better tea and better reference points, but I think a better understanding of kind of the ecosystem. And I don't mean that just environmentally, but the ecosystem of merchants and negotiants, right. That exists beyond just the zhengyan and, and how the broader area of this National Nature Reserve plays a part in the tea and the tea culture coming out of the Wuyi area. And so I'm really interested to continue to learn more about this like outer park in a positive way. 'Cause usually that term is used negatively right? Outer park in a positive way, I'm interested to get a chance to taste some of these teas and learn more about these.

But I think for people who have never been to Wuyi, reading hopefully last year's trip reports, and then this year's trip reports, I think we were pretty clear last year that we know that there was more to learn and we didn't quite have the exact access we want yet. And I hope that they can kind of see what that development looks like. And through listening to our discussion today too, I think just the kind of effort that needs to be put in consistently to attain these kind of networks. And how this isn't just, Pat, Jason and Zongjun show up to some tea place and suddenly have a magical trip where we learn everything you need to learn and we're enlightened and we have the best access to tea in the world. It, it doesn't happen that way. It never happens that way. Some trips are better than others, but Wuyi was a struggle last year and I'm glad to see it wasn't a struggle for you this year, and I just can't wait to see what it looks like when we go back next time. 

[00:30:23] Zongjun Li: It's sometimes really feel a little bit like that in some other trips, Pat, but really not Wuyi. Wuyi feels really deep water. At least that's how I felt last time and reading this year's trip report from Jason, I actually view it a little bit more negative than you Pat in a way that it really reinforced a lot of our experience last time. Still, like all of the I would say highly intervened agricultural practices. And how soil depletion is really a thing not just inside the park, but you know, really across other regions as well. And the true good tea, the true terroir, it does exist, which is very hopeful, but not easily be able to get access to them is, is really I would say pained for us and for other people too. 'Cause, in a way it's really a indicator of a internal argument, potential, internal argument or a difficult conversation with other people in the future in a way that the knowledge that we end up learning might not be necessarily common knowledge. It's really hard to form meaningful conversation with other people in that sense because frequently you would be able to foresee that, oh, okay, this conversation is not going anywhere. 'Cause they haven't had the same experience as us would in many ways.

[00:31:49] Jason Cohen: It already happened. The trip report got picked up in a few spots and discussed, and some people were quite negative on it. 

[00:31:58] Zongjun Li: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It definitely feels very different than puer and dancong and other tea regions that we have visit. And I would say the amount of capitals and attentions being paid in this area is also on a different level than our tea production region because like all of the opinions being held or being preached in Wuyi has very, very intense real world consequences. And, there are a lot of money being involved and people obviously wanted to hold very strong opinion on certain things. If they're selling tea, for example, or if they are already pay a lot of tuitions and they, they don't necessarily want to see them being challenged.

[00:32:46] Jason Cohen: Yeah, you pay $8 a gram for prime Niulan Keng and you say, no, this is the best tea. 

[00:32:52] Pat Penny: Without ever stepping foot in Niulan Keng and seeing what, the agricultural processes look like there. You know, I'm not saying for the entirety of Niulan Keng, but for a lot of what I've seen. It's interesting. And I'm sure other people like vendors probably feel this way, right? They have a very different incentive than us. But being in these places and admittedly in certain areas having better context than others and better access in some places than others, but being in these places, seeing an experience, sharing it, and then seeing some people online go like, well, I don't think they know what they're talking about. Like you, feel free to rock up to Wuyi whenever you want and let me know if you have a different experience. I hope you do have a different experience than I had last year. I hope you have experience closer to what you had this year, Jason, but I doubt you will. 

[00:33:36] Zongjun Li: Yeah. Sign up for a tea tour first. 

[00:33:38] Pat Penny: Yeah, you'll have a great time on a tea tour. You'll learn so much totally unfiltered information. 

[00:33:42] Jason Cohen: Yeah. It's a, yeah, it's a bit of good luck. I think you spend more time on some of the online tea places than I do, Pat. But 

[00:33:50] Pat Penny: It's a dark world. 

[00:33:52] Jason Cohen: What do you think the response is gonna be? Both Western and Chinese, right? We do have a good readership now in China. All of our charen friends out there get access to the, book and in my view, our friends in China are generally more positive than the fly by commenters in the United States.

[00:34:13] Pat Penny: Yeah, hopefully this report is further helpful context on how to mentally frame up Wuyi particularly if you never plan on going, right? If you don't think you're gonna have the chance to go to China and have the opportunity to visit Wuyi, hopefully this is just helpful context. It doesn't have to shape your buying but just have some of the things we're saying in the back of your mind that the access that you have is limited in some ways, and the education you have is limited in some ways, and hopefully we're supplementing it. But I think we know that our readership is very niche. And we know we don't always make the biggest waves with the things we put out there. I'll be happy to see all sorts of comments, however people wanna talk about it, good or bad as long as they're talking about it. 

[00:34:52] Jason Cohen: Anyone who wants to spend $4 plus per gram could do themselves a favor and read 30 pages on the tea they're buying.

[00:34:58] Pat Penny: You would hope so. Maybe their time is worth more than money. I don't know. 

[00:35:02] Jason Cohen: Ignorance is bliss. It's better not to know. 

[00:35:05] Pat Penny: Just buy the DRC and the Lafite Rothschild. 

[00:35:08] Jason Cohen: What were you gonna say, Zongjun?

[00:35:10] Zongjun Li: Oh I was going to make a maocha joke, but might be too meme. I wouldn't wish that to my worst enemy.

[00:35:18] Pat Penny: No, we saw what it did to you last year, so just know we suffer for the readers and listeners. Great benefit.

[00:35:25] Jason Cohen: Yes, we did. Have either of you been drinking yancha anytime recently? 

[00:35:31] Pat Penny: Dude, like, not at all. I think the last yancha I had might have been when we were in Kunming with our merchant friend. I literally have been drinking puer nonstop. Yiwu puer, that's been like it. 

[00:35:45] Zongjun Li: Yeah. Same here. Same here. Too many good puers to go through. 

[00:35:51] Pat Penny: Dancong here or there, but that's about it. Some Japanese green tea. I don't know, it's been real random.

[00:35:58] Zongjun Li: How about you? 

[00:36:00] Jason Cohen: Well, leading up to this trip and then on the trip but my tendency is certainly towards Yiwu, and then, if I do a more serious sequence tasting on a Saturday then what do I reach for on Sunday is dancong. 

One of the reasons that I've been doing the Talk Taste Triage that I did them thematically for the last few is to force myself to actually set up a sequence tasting of yancha because I was like, ah, it's kind of expensive. Maybe I'll just have one. But then I use different kettles and different wares for yancha. So I'm not on my tetsubin, I'm on my shadiao and soak different teapots, so it feels like a big chore. 

[00:36:47] Zongjun Li: Did you discover any like good yancha that's at a more affordable price range and still good this trip? 

[00:36:56] Jason Cohen: That's a good question. 

[00:36:58] Zongjun Li: Because like, I feel like that's really something that is preventing people from getting into a habit of drinking yancha more often.

[00:37:06] Jason Cohen: Yeah. No, I would say everything I grabbed was very expensive. So much so that at first I thought that some of the outer, the Nine Bend Ecological Area's teas would be cheaper or at least more affordable. But they really weren't, particularly compared to similar. No. Particularly, they still came in anywhere from $1.50, the ones that I bought from $1.50 upwards of $4 per gram. And there were definitely teas that were fully handmade from unnamed areas that were priced above that that I didn't purchase.

And I think what's happened, and I talked about this a little bit in the trip report, is that particularly in these very ecologically focused areas, it's the same people often making the tea. Either they have tea makers there who are legacy tea makers, or it's the same people who's making the zhengyan tea. And when they then bring this super ecological tea from outside the zhengyan from the Nine Bend Stream Ecological Area. usually they insist on it being fully handmade, a hundred percent handmade, no machine use at all. Because it's not zhengyan, right? They need a different claim and there's not that much of the tea. It's truly in an ecological area. So some of the machines don't really totally make sense to use. It'll be too rough on the tea in a small batch. And so it winds up being fully handmade. So actually the price comes up pretty high.

But on the other hand, I think it's great. Like that type of yancha from an ecological area, totally handmade, it is like, it's wonderful. I think that pretty often hits a home run on the things that not just intellectually appeal to me, but the flavor's there. Tasting it blind, it would score above half handmade or fully machine made zhengyan nine outta ten times comparing cultivar to cultivar and maybe or maybe not laocong, but a lot of those ecological areas are laocong.

[00:39:09] Pat Penny: So I think it's important we get back to shaokao and papayas. 

[00:39:13] Jason Cohen: Do we need any shaokao? 

[00:39:15] Pat Penny: Good call. 

[00:39:16] Jason Cohen: After our Kunming experience, which is a repeat experience for me, it's so hard to eat shaokao anywhere. 

[00:39:23] Pat Penny: Yeah. Not even worth going out for it. 

[00:39:25] Jason Cohen: No. And Zongjun really hyped up Xian and like no, Xian has great shaokao and has different spice and it's as good. And I got to Xian and I have to tell you, shaokao there sucked. It was 

[00:39:39] Pat Penny: Zongjun made his excuses for it already in the last Yiwu wrap up. 

[00:39:43] Jason Cohen: Yeah, he did. He did. They banned charcoal in the walled city and then even outside the city, you have to go somewhere the government can't see its smoke.

[00:39:51] Zongjun Li: Shaokao speakeasy. 

[00:39:53] Jason Cohen: Shaokao speakeasy, what it felt like. No, I don't know. Kunming is something else. The second part of that question, papaya. That's a good question. Why did we need a two page end note about the history of the papaya? 

[00:40:03] Pat Penny: I don't know if need is even the right question, but why did you want to put a two page end note about the history of papaya?

[00:40:10] Jason Cohen: I didn't want. That got added because of editorial misdirection, so maybe Zongjun can explain, but mugua (木瓜) which in more common part, go ahead. Go ahead. 

[00:40:24] Zongjun Li: Oh, oh, it's actually a very old term. Really predates the contemporary interpretation of mugua or papaya nowadays by a few thousand years. And at the time it really refers to something very different, actually refers to multiple different plants across different dynasties. The definition changed. But it was really until very recently that the real papaya, the mugua that we are eating nowadays got introduced into China that people associate that term with papaya. 

[00:40:57] Jason Cohen: That's the fake papaya. That's the fan mugua (番木瓜). 

[00:40:59] Zongjun Li: The fan mugua, foreign papaya. The laowai papayas. 

[00:41:06] Jason Cohen: You know, the thing is by no means am I a native speaker, but I put in the work and do the research. So it's, it's interesting when there's, someone's gonna read some of these older translations that I do. And its almost sad in a way, Zongjun insisted on simplified Chinese. Most of our translations are in simplified Chinese. Although this is from, 

[00:41:30] Zongjun Li: It's really for SEO optimization since 

[00:41:33] Jason Cohen: So everyone can find it. 

[00:41:35] Zongjun Li: And also obviously, for traditional character readers, reading simplified version is easier than the other way. 

[00:41:42] Jason Cohen: It is a Qing Dynasty travel log of someone who visited Wuyi. Because what trip report can be complete without comparing it to a earlier dynastic reference. 

[00:41:53] Pat Penny: Yes, we always do. 

[00:41:56] Jason Cohen: And it talks about a cultivar, a cultivar that I don't believe is extant anymore. I've never heard of mugua cultivar yancha, have you Zongjun? 

[00:42:06] Zongjun Li: No. 

[00:42:07] Jason Cohen: No. I don't think it's extant anymore, but someone tried to sell me that mugua's papaya and that should be translated as papaya. And that really bothered me after spending hours and hours and hours and hours on a research and a translation to find this travel log, tracked down the specific cultivar, cultivars that have since died out. And so I wrote a two page end note about the history of the papaya and the lexical shifts in the term mugua. And partially motivated so that I don't get any further wrong corrections and partially motivated 'cause I really like papaya fruit. Favorite fruit. It's true. 

[00:42:52] Pat Penny: Well, all that, all about that papaya milk.

[00:42:56] Jason Cohen: Well, thank you everyone. That's all the time that we have for today. Thank you for joining us in this special edition of Tea Technique Editorial Conversations. Please join us for our next conversation where we will hopefully be returning to our regularly scheduled programming. We have a great chapter coming up on shipwreck Yixing wares. We'll be resuming more regular cadence and book publications. And thank you all for being along for the journey. We could be doing this amongst ourselves, but doing it with you along for the ride means a, a whole lot. So, thank you and goodnight.

Chapter Discussion Sections:

• 00:00 Introduction 
• 00:25 Understanding Downdraft Kilns 
• 01:47 Advantages and Disadvantages of Downdraft Kilns 
• 03:29 Historical Context and Evolution 
• 04:55 Modern Use and Challenges 
• 11:24 Yixing's Ceramic Heritage 

Transcript 

[00:00:05] Jason Cohen: Hello everyone. I'm Jason Cohen, the author of an Introduction to the Art and Science of Chinese Tea Ceremony. Today we're discussing book two, chapter 10, section three, Downdraft Kilns. Here to talk about this chapter is our editorial team, Zongjun Li. 

[00:00:19] Zongjun Li: Hello, hello. 

[00:00:21] Jason Cohen: And Emily Huang. 

[00:00:23] Emily Huang: Hi everyone. 

[00:00:24] Jason Cohen: Wonderful. My first question, what is a downdraft kiln?

[00:00:30] Emily Huang: A down draft kiln is a kiln that, maybe you can get it from its name, where the chimneys are located instead on the top of the kilns, it is towards the bottom. And so that the air is circulated in a way that it comes in from below up into the inside of the kiln and then down again.

[00:00:55] Zongjun Li: Yeah, you can basically envision it as a compressed version of a dragon kiln. It still retains a lot of similar structure as a dragon kiln, and it used the chimney to create a suction of air to create an airflow inside the kiln to fire the wares inside. 

[00:01:16] Jason Cohen: I guess the important thing about the downdraft kiln is as Emily said the chimney is at the bottom. So you actually have a firing box at the bottom and the heat has to flow up and it has to fill the entire chamber in order to exit the chimney at the bottom. So you could envision the kiln as a U where the heat flows from the front of the U up into the kiln and then down through the chimney. So, 

[00:01:43] Zongjun Li: That's right. 

[00:01:44] Jason Cohen: The key insight into what a downdraft kiln is. What is the advantage of the chimney at the bottom. Is there an advantage? What, what is the purpose of that technology versus a, a top chimney?

[00:01:56] Emily Huang: There are a few advantages for this type of downdraft, and one being as Jason mentioned, it creates a more condensed airflow. It provides a little bit more of a efficiency compared to previous kiln types such as dragon kilns. 

[00:02:14] Jason Cohen: It's slightly less fuel efficient then other types of kilns because it radiates away much of the heat. But it uses far less fuel per firing. And the stability of the heat is very high, although there is a top to bottom gradient in the overall heat.

[00:02:35] Zongjun Li: Yeah, that is correct. And also for such construction, you can really condense the space required to build a kiln to fired a larger amount of wares. And the structure is fairly simple to build and it really allows the chamber to create a more homogeneous and stabled temperature across all of the sections, although you still would have a gradient of temperature from top to bottom. The Chinese name for downdraft kiln literally means upside down flame kiln. You have the flame coming from top to bottom instead of coming from each side like tunnel kiln or a gas kiln or electric kiln. Very interesting kiln type if you look into it. Although it not as fuel efficient. It, it's much smaller kiln. So it doesn't necessarily require significant amount of fuel source. 

[00:03:29] Jason Cohen: Where did this, the, the design of the downdraft kilns originate in China? Were downdraft kilns developed in Yixing ex novo, or was there inspiration from other ceramic centers aiding the design of the Yixing's downdraft kilns.

[00:03:44] Emily Huang: So the design of downdraft kilns did not originate from Yixing. It were based on another type called mantou yao, which can be translated to steam bun type kilns, and probably more in the northern China areas and probably even back earlier to the Warring States Period, which is about 475 BC to 221 BC 

[00:04:14] Zongjun Li: Yeah, the mantou prototype mantou yao really looks kind of like some of the wood fire pizza burner that you see in the west. But it, it was originally from that shape and then refined during the Northern Song dynasty.

[00:04:29] Jason Cohen: Which brings me to the most important question of this podcast. Charcoal pizza or woodfire pizza? 

[00:04:34] Zongjun Li: Woodfire. No. Heavy oil burnt pizza. 

[00:04:39] Jason Cohen: It's not a heavy oil kiln. They gotta burn that olive oil. 

[00:04:43] Zongjun Li: Excessive taste of grease. The petroleum flavor. It's much better than truffle. Yeah. 

[00:04:49] Jason Cohen: No need for truffle oil if you use a heavy oil kiln for your pizza.

When were downdraft kilns first used in Yixing? And why were they only used for about two decades during the F1 period?

[00:05:01] Emily Huang: So the downdraft kilns entered Yixing about mid to late 1950s, and it was adopted because it basically can burn anything. And it was during a time when craftsmen were facing a lot of fuel shortages. So they were not just burning wood. They were burning coal or oil and anything they can think of. And it works for downdraft kilns. But slowly they realized this is not quite efficient fuel wise, and it was not very clean. And they were developing and realizing other better technologies, better ways to burn. So it slowly faded. 

[00:05:47] Jason Cohen: What was the quality of the zisha wares fired in a downdraft kiln? 

[00:05:53] Emily Huang: As we mentioned earlier, because there were a range of different types of fuel sources it really created a lot of dust and it was just not clean. There were things in the dust or ashes that could remain on the wares. To be honest the zisha wares that were produced in downdraft kilns, especially in the earlier periods of downdraft kilns adoptions were not very good.

[00:06:20] Zongjun Li: Yeah. So, even though there's a relatively stable temperature overall, there's quite a difference between the top stack versus the bottom stack. So, when people are trying to figure out exactly how to use the kiln, along the way many flaws and crackage exist and also, the mixed use of different fuel source really create a lot of smoke. Not very high quality wares. 

[00:06:45] Jason Cohen: A lot of surface blemishes. 

[00:06:48] Zongjun Li: Yeah. 

[00:06:49] Jason Cohen: And yet people still are all over collecting F1. Do these surface blemishes have an effect on the tea or are these just aesthetic? 

[00:06:59] Zongjun Li: It's like people still collect very early Chloe Sauv whiskey, you know, like it's a part of the legend, but not necessarily high quality. Yeah.

[00:07:11] Jason Cohen: In this chapter I write that historically downdraft kilns were transitory technology in the progression of kiln use in Yixing. So if the wares were lower quality and if they were eventually abandoned, why has there recently been a reemergence of downdraft kilns as the leading, really the only kiln design for wood-fired wares of zisha material?

[00:07:35] Zongjun Li: Very interestingly, we actually physically visit one of the downdraft kiln, wood-fired downdraft kiln in our last Yixing trip. And what we learned is that first of all it's not necessarily legal to burn wood in Yixing. Except from the once a year ceremonially fired dragon Kiln in Yixing, you don't technically allowed to burn wood in other places. So downdraft kiln is really a good middle ground because it's pretty small, so it doesn't really attract a lot of attention. We drove about half an hour in to the mountain to our friend's studio to visit his site. It's quite interesting.

Wood-fired kiln, wood-fired wares has this like irreplaceable charm to me. The warmth, the weight, the gravity in your hand, the interesting surface texture that it creates. It has a lot of merits. Nowadays people who owns and fired downdraft kilns in Yixing use high quality fuel source. And they have the mechanism and the technology of using such kiln perfected over the years. So, it's no longer such a stumbled process to fire wares in downdraft kiln anymore. And for the wares that we have seen and end up purchasing some, they're quite beautiful and quite nice to use.

[00:09:00] Jason Cohen: So in summary, we've returned to downdraft kilns because they're small, they're compact, they can be placed up in the mountains. The officials who like tea and like Yixing, is why they oversee it, also appreciate wood-fired wares. You can do small amounts of firing with high quality fuel sources. So really the issue with the downdraft kilns wasn't the kiln technology itself. This is a, a continuation of the issues during the communist period of deforestation, the lack of high quality fuel sources. 

[00:09:31] Zongjun Li: Yeah, exactly. I mean, garbage in, garbage out. Can't expect high quality wares coming from low quality fuel source.

[00:09:40] Jason Cohen: Earlier in this discussion we had mentioned the issues of ash and dust and ware breakage. Do we find that ware breakage is still high in downdraft kiln? Has there been a continuous progression in this technology so that there's now less ash and dust and there's less breakage? Or are Yixing artists today resign to wood-fired wares sell at a little bit of a higher price because there's going to be more, more breakage and flaws? 

[00:10:13] Zongjun Li: Interesting question. So, what we have learned is that for a lot of artists they don't necessarily use downdraft kiln throughout. Sometimes the wares will be fired in a electric kiln once, and then it gets the second fire. First it went through a zhengkou, the mouth adjustment process, and then they get re-fired in a wood kiln, a downdraft kiln to receive the, the surface finish or the texture finish. So that's I guess one way to prevent intensive crack issue. And also, higher quality fuel source and better control of the temperature also really helps. And nowadays they also adopted very interesting material to insulate the kiln. It's asbestos? Yeah. Asbestos. How safe they are, I don't know. But they do, they, they do do a good job in the insulating the heat radiating from the kiln. 

[00:11:06] Jason Cohen: That was a little concerning seeing the kiln entirely lined with asbestos. Well, none of us have developed mesothelioma yet. I guess we're okay. 

[00:11:19] Zongjun Li: Yeah, it was pretty, pretty interesting visiting that site. I missed that place. 

[00:11:24] Jason Cohen: So Yixing had a history of firing other wares, including Yijun, of course, but these kilns that were originally from Northern China weren't originally used for zisha. They were originally used for other ceramic art forms. Was there any history of those art forms entering Yixing with the spread of these kilns?

[00:11:47] Emily Huang: So along with the shape from mantou kilns that originated from the Northern China region, the intended ware that it was originally designed for were some celadon wares, especially glazed ones. And so that also came along and entered into Yixing.

[00:12:10] Jason Cohen: So there was a late blossoming of celadon wares in Yixing for a short period of time. Have we ever seen any Yixing celadon wares? Are there any pieces in museums or anything? And is there any contemporary production of this? 

[00:12:25] Zongjun Li: We've seen a few pieces in the Yixing Ceramic Museum in the Yixing Town. But as the demand of zisha really thrived, a lot of these studios stopped producing all kinds of other wares except zisha, which is kind of sad to see, like, Yijun, celadon and there used to be a very large production of other daily usage ware too. I think we heard of one of the artists talking about like Yixing being a major ceramic tiles production region back in the days. But now it's mostly 

[00:13:01] Jason Cohen: Here we can mention the Yixing ceramic tiles and the Starbucks. 

[00:13:05] Zongjun Li: Yeah. That was very cool. I, I don't know if Emily, 

[00:13:08] Emily Huang: No.

[00:13:09] Zongjun Li: Okay. 

[00:13:10] Emily Huang: Do tell. 

[00:13:10] Zongjun Li: Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. It's Blue Bottle opened a bunch of new chains in China. Personally I think the quality of Blue Bottle in China is significantly better than the ones in the States. I think Jason will agree with me. 

[00:13:24] Jason Cohen: Different supply chain? 

[00:13:25] Zongjun Li: Yeah, different supply chain. And one of their flagship cafe in Shanghai they use I think some 5,000 pieces of ceramic tiles all fired using zisha and 

[00:13:40] Emily Huang: Wow. 

[00:13:41] Zongjun Li: Yeah. And they installed them on the floor, on the wall, on the ceiling. Oh, it's quite beautiful. 

[00:13:47] Emily Huang: Wow. 

[00:13:47] Zongjun Li: Very cool. Yeah, very cool to see 

[00:13:49] Emily Huang: Googling that.

[00:13:50] Zongjun Li: Yeah. Well, if our listeners had the chance to visit Shanghai, please do visit that Blue Bottle in Kerry Centre.

[00:13:58] Jason Cohen: That's great. This top,

[00:13:58] Zongjun Li: It's not a paid advertisement. 

[00:14:01] Emily Huang: But we welcome paid advertisement. 

[00:14:03] Zongjun Li: We do, we do. 

[00:14:06] Jason Cohen: Blue Bottle. 

[00:14:07] Zongjun Li: Nestle. 

[00:14:09] Jason Cohen: Alright everyone, that's all the time that we have for today. Thank you for joining us in this edition of Tea Technique Editorial Conversations. Please join us again for our next conversation, Tunnel Kilns. 

• 00:00 Introduction 
• 00:54 Max's Journey in Tea 
• 05:21 The Dowry Tea for the Conversation 
• 07:11 Processing Experiments Effect on Taste in Tea 
• 10:22 Aging and Storage of Tea 
• 12:24 The Demand for Gushu and the Invisible Market 
• 22:04 Appellation Identity and Yesheng debate 
• 31:28 What is Deep Forest Tea 
• 41:17 Wuyi under the Microscope 
• 47:50 Learning to Taste and Preference Ladder 
• 54:49 The Lonely Hermit Online Forum Problem 
• 59:35 Building a Better Media Environment 
• 01:08:01 The Role of Cultural Context in Tea Appreciation 
• 01:21:06 The Evolution of Tea Production Techniques 
• 01:28:05 Factory Tea vs. Boutique Tea 
• 01:34:43 The No Patina Club 
• 01:36:00 The End Game in Tea 
• 01:40:31 Future Passion Project 
• 01:52:46 Hot Takes on Tea Culture 
• 02:02:25 Tea Drinking Habits and Writing 
• 02:09:47 Conclusion and Farewell

Chapter Discussion Sections:

• 00:00 Introduction
• 00:21 Definition - What is a Dragon Kiln?
• 01:47 What is the significance of a dragon kiln in Yixing?
• 02:19 When did dragon kilns arrive in Yixing?
• 03:20 How big are the dragon kilns?
• 05:21 Pat's experience in firing the dragon kiln in Korea.
• 09:03 The sequence of firing a dragon kiln.
• 10:26 Are the eyes of the kiln open or closed during feeding stage?
• 11:38 After the primary firing stage, what happens?
• 12:30 How important is the fuel source used to fire the kiln?
• 14:47 How well developed was the use of fuel?
• 17:21 The editorial team’s preference for wood-fired ceramic wares.
• 19:58 What does the team look for in a high quality wood fired ware?
• 22:03 How strong is the team’s presupposition that wood fired wares is superior?
• 27:40 Why would ceramic artists have a dispreference to dragon kilns?
• 31:05 Are there any countervailing trends?

Transcript

[00:00:05] Jason Cohen: Hello everyone. I'm Jason Cohen, the author of an Introduction to the Art and Science of Chinese Tea Ceremony. Today we're discussing book two, chapter 10, section two, Dragon Kiln. Here to talk about this chapter is our editorial team, Patrick Penny. 

[00:00:18] Pat Penny: Hey. Hey!

[00:00:19] Jason Cohen: As well as Zongjun Li. 

[00:00:21] Jason Cohen: My first question, what is a dragon kiln?

[00:00:24] Zongjun Li: It's a kiln that's made out of dragons' skeletons when they slay the dragon back in Song Dynasty. And they continue to build up this pile of legacy... I'm making things up. 

[00:00:37] Pat Penny: That, that's why we see so many dragon motifs on cups across the dynasties. 'Cause it was another way to remember the dragons that had been slain and then their bones were used to make the kilns.

But dragon slaying aside, it's a elongated kiln that's built upon a slope. And so, if one uses their imagination, you can kind of see how it might be shaped like a long cylinder sort of like a dragon. And then I think another allusion to the dragon is that this has some kind of port or hole at the front where you're gonna be lighting the main fire. And air is gonna be moving through that port, bringing fresh oxygen, but also igniting and continuing to sustain the rest of the fires within the kiln. So it's kind of just looks like this fiery earth and mound that is a dragon.

[00:01:19] Zongjun Li: So legit fire breathing dragon. 

[00:01:23] Jason Cohen: And so these kilns, these are specifically some type of climbing kiln that have usually multiple compartments, multiple sections, winding their way up a mountain slope. 

[00:01:33] Pat Penny: Arms and legs of the dragon. That's what it is right there. 

[00:01:35] Zongjun Li: And depending on the size, similar format, but exist in smaller size can be called a snake kiln or centipede kiln like, she yao (蛇窑), wugong yao (蜈蚣窑). 

[00:01:47] Jason Cohen: What is the significance of a dragon kiln in Yixing?

[00:01:49] Zongjun Li: Well, for Yixing in particular, it was literally the only type of kiln that were used to fire wares for a very long time. Until, during the 18, 19th century, downdraft kiln and other formats of kiln are invented. But before that, and for thousands of years, dragon kiln was the only kiln that was used in Yixing. 

[00:02:10] Jason Cohen: Only kiln used in Yixing for zisha wares. 

[00:02:14] Zongjun Li: For zisha wares. 

[00:02:15] Jason Cohen: Other types of ceramics, like, yijun (宜钧) and others could have been fired in other kilns.

[00:02:19] Jason Cohen: So when did dragon kilns arrive in Yixing?

[00:02:23] Zongjun Li: Northern Song Dynasty. 

[00:02:26] Jason Cohen: But zisha wares didn't start until the mid-Ming approximately. So what were they doing with these dragon kilns before that?

[00:02:33] Pat Penny: Probably firing some other form of daily wares or earthen wares that might not have been what we see today as zisha, but could have been some kind of proto zisha that's using similar material but potentially not processed the same way that we know zisha ore to be processed today.

[00:02:49] Jason Cohen: And this is an interesting idea, right? That much of the technology that went into making zisha wares actually predates zisha as an independent art form within Yixing. In my mind, this seems to be something that is frequently either glossed over or not seriously considered that so much of the technology and so much of the work that went into the artistry that went into Yixing predates the independent art form.

[00:03:17] Pat Penny: That's a great point, Jason. 

[00:03:19] Jason Cohen: Thank you, Pat. 

[00:03:20] Jason Cohen: Can you give us a sense of scale? How big are these dragon kilns? 

[00:03:25] Pat Penny: The one that you and I were able to fire wares in, in Korea, for example, which you have a picture of in the chapter. I might not be able to give you a precise measurement, but thinking back anecdotally to what I saw and experienced, it seemed to be maybe between about 15 to 20 meters or so, it was quite long, and you are moving up a hill. You really feel like you're walking some distance as you cover the length of the kiln. 

[00:03:49] Zongjun Li: That was in Korea? Actually, yeah, I've seen that kiln too. It was with the Onggi master An Shi Sung. 

[00:03:54] Pat Penny: Yep. Same kiln. And I think it looked very similar to what we saw when we were in Dingshu town. We went and saw the remaining dragon kiln that they used there. 

[00:04:04] Zongjun Li: The only one that's still in use today, but historically in average Yixing dragon kilns are much longer. The average size is about 50 meters. And the longest one, that people can trace back with historical evidence is 70 meters, Pin Sheng Yao (品胜窑). (Errata: Not the longest by length though, it was the oldest dragon kiln in continuous operation for firing zisha, active from mid Ming dynasty to mid 20 century.)

[00:04:20] Pat Penny: That's a real dragon. 

[00:04:23] Jason Cohen: These are huge, right? These are firing what thousands of wares at a time? Is that about right? 

[00:04:29] Zongjun Li: Yeah, sounds about right. 

Pin Sheng Yao, I read a little bit about the history of that kiln. It was actually built with three families. They set up a junction to establish this kiln, to produce wares mainly for exportation to Southeast Asia.

[00:04:45] Pat Penny: And you think about just how much effort it is to first of all gather the resources to fire, but then to actually maintain the fire. You would never underfill a kiln.

If you're going to fire, you're going to be filling that kiln. So it's certainly gonna be, even the ones that we've seen fire are hundreds to thousands of pieces and I can only imagine the really large historical ones being thousands to tens of thousands of pieces. 

[00:05:08] Zongjun Li: Yeah. 

[00:05:10] Jason Cohen: Pat, you brought up our experience with Onggi master An Shi Sung. We fired a dragon kiln together in South Korea and Zongjun, I believe you saw the kiln, but you did not, 

[00:05:19] Zongjun Li: I did not participate in the firing. Yeah. 

[00:05:21] Jason Cohen: So Pat, what was that experience like, firing the dragon kiln? It's similar enough to the Yixing kilns. Firing, also interestingly, unglazed wares, some of which were in saggers, onggi material. 

[00:05:33] Jason Cohen: What was that like? 

[00:05:35] Pat Penny: Sweaty? No, it was really special. It is intensely hot, being near the kiln. 

We had the opportunity to shadow Mr. An Shi Sung. He pointed out to us some areas where we should add wood. And so we had the opportunity to help maintain the heat of the fire. And just getting close enough to one of the eyes to drop in like a chunk of a log, the amount of heat you're feeling, it's really hard to really even face the heat of the kiln. I felt like there's many times where I wanted to go put some fuel, wood into the fire. And I'm kind of like facing away, which I realize this is an audio medium and I'm doing the action, but I'm sort of facing away from the kiln while I'm trying to place the log into the hole.

So it really was so intensely hot and really quite, I can't only imagine ' cause we were only there for probably about six hours during the firing night. That is going for, I believe in the case of An Shi Sung's, it was 48 hours of firing before a cool down. 

We were only there for six and I felt exhausted. And, part of those six hours was we made some nice Korean barbecue. But he always had his eyes on it and he always had a sense of what needed to be done with the kiln. We were just there to assist. 

[00:06:44] Zongjun Li: Did you do the barbecue on top of the kiln fire or 

[00:06:49] Jason Cohen: You took charcoal out of the kiln mouth. Formed charcoal, and barbecued on that. So yes, 

[00:06:54] Pat Penny: It was awesome. I can't remember if we had Cass or Hite or Terra, but we had our meat and our beer and it was a great time. 

[00:07:01] Zongjun Li: That was great. 

[00:07:03] Jason Cohen: I too also remember being hot and uncomfortable and the difficulties in getting too close to the kiln. 

One of the things that strikes me looking at those photos again, is that despite it being in the middle of the summer and 90 something degrees out, in order to approach the kiln, everyone was in full sleeves. We were wearing visors, full sleeve outfits, because you can get literally sunburned just from standing too close to the kiln. Not even a physical burn, but UV style heat burn. 

And we talk about many of these things in abstract, particularly being more on the literati scholar, urban lifestyle for all of us. But then actually seeing the amount of work that goes into forming these things. The type of work that the collectors of Yixing teapots wouldn't have been doing during the dynastic period, it puts into perspective how much of a communal process and how many layers of civilization are necessary in order to actually even get to the point of consistently firing ceramics. 

[00:08:05] Pat Penny: An Shi Sung, even though he's a singular potter, when he goes to fire that dragon kiln, I don't think it's ever just his wares and certainly it's never just him maintaining the fire. When we were there, I think there was two or three other gentlemen that were helping to maintain the kiln. I don't think he's firing that many times a year because it's such an effort. But it, it is always a community effort of multiple potters coming together to do that. 

[00:08:29] Jason Cohen: I believe there's two or three ceramic artists who make other types of non-Onggi wares that he frequently works with that are always doing it. But if my memory holds, he fires only between once and twice a year. 

[00:08:39] Pat Penny: That's what I remember too. 

[00:08:41] Zongjun Li: What kind of fuel source do they use in Korea? Because in China they use pine. 

[00:08:46] Jason Cohen: I believe it was also pine. The photos show long cut logs that look like pine to me. 

[00:08:52] Pat Penny: I think even if I went back to my notes from 12 years ago, I don't feel that I actually asked the fuel source.

So, 

[00:08:58] Jason Cohen: What type of work is that? 

[00:09:00] Pat Penny: Things we've learned, in 12 years. 

[00:09:03] Jason Cohen: We're gonna get there. Staying on this firing idea in Yixing, what was the sequence of firing and what are the sequences of firing a dragon kiln?

[00:09:12] Pat Penny: You gotta start with the warmup. Just like when you're going to the gym, you're gonna do some squats and deadlifts. You can't just pick up the heavyweight. That kiln needs to warm up. And the wares inside it need to warm up as well to really help reduce any kind of shattering or crackage. Both of the wares and of the kiln. 

[00:09:26] Jason Cohen: That's something people don't think about is that the kiln itself is usually made of fired ceramic. Mix of brick fired ceramic. And so you have to preheat the kiln itself. So the kiln doesn't explode like a ceramic ware can. 

[00:09:39] Zongjun Li: Yeah. And during the process, they usually would open all of the fire observation eyes to let all of the moisture content out when they slowly increase the temperature in the kiln. Because frequently these dragon kilns are constructed in coastal regions. So, it can be very, very moist during summer times and spring times. 

[00:10:01] Jason Cohen: So the kiln warms up. You're firing, I assume, in the fire box.

It gets warm enough that you can start the primary firing, right? 

[00:10:09] Pat Penny: Yeah. So you get into the feeding phase, which is where you've basically reached the maximum temperature that you're targeting and you're just trying to maintain that over the course of quite a long period of time. Depends on what wares you're firing, between 24 and 48 hours is not uncommon for this feeding stage. 

[00:10:27] Jason Cohen: And the eyes of the kiln, these are open or closed during this feeding state? 

[00:10:32] Pat Penny: To my understanding, predominantly closed. And then opened as necessary for feeding, so for adding fuel. 

[00:10:38] Jason Cohen: And the fuel is actually going into not only the mouth of the kiln, but also into each chamber of the kiln. 

[00:10:44] Pat Penny: To make sure that you've got an even temperature across all the wares that are being fired.

But if you also know that you have some slightly different wares in different spots of the kiln, not only stacked vertically by the use of saggers but also through the distribution of the kiln, you might be trying to add less fuel in one area, more in another to maintain a slightly higher or lower temperature.

[00:11:05] Zongjun Li: And traditionally people use pine as the main fuel source to fire the kiln. But during the temperature adjustment process, other fuel source might be used too, like bamboo or straws. 

[00:11:17] Jason Cohen: And because those are less combustible? 

[00:11:20] Zongjun Li: Yeah, less combustible.

[00:11:22] Jason Cohen: So they, they adjust the temperature less? 

[00:11:24] Pat Penny: And not particularly for Yixing, but if you are firing wares where you're looking to get some kind of ash glaze, you could adjust your fuel source to make sure that the kind of ash that you want to be glazing is being created in the kiln.

[00:11:38] Jason Cohen: So we go through this 24, 48 hours. We're done with the kiln feeding or the primary firing stage, and then what happens?

[00:11:46] Pat Penny: Burn out. So you start to allow basically the fuel source to, to burn its way out. And then there's an adjustment of the eyes to maintain a slow and steady cool down, which can go also for 48 hours. Just needs to be really carefully managed to ensure that you don't have any sudden or rapid drops in temperature.

[00:12:09] Jason Cohen: And then you're done, after? 

[00:12:11] Pat Penny: Well, you gotta go in and get all of your wares, right. There's still quite a lot of work to be done. But it's really a matter of reaching a temperature that, you know, is gonna be safe to go in and you're gonna ensure that all of your wares are able to be pulled out of the kiln.

[00:12:25] Jason Cohen: But then the cool down is another

[00:12:27] Pat Penny: Could be another two days, four days. 

[00:12:29] Zongjun Li: A couple days really. 

[00:12:31] Jason Cohen: Switching gears from this a little bit, how important is the fuel source used to fire the kiln?

[00:12:37] Zongjun Li: Well, traditionally people use pine because it contains a lot of resins and it's very, very combustible. It's very easy to reach much higher temperature than other fuel source. And, throughout hundreds of years of firing zisha using this fuel source, deforestation has been a problem.

So, really modern days people no longer use pine because these are protected trees and forest areas. And instead people use bamboo or sometimes they're straw. These fuel source produce actually much lower temperature than pine. And for what we have heard from people that have seen or used dragon kilns in Yixing using this type of fuel source, apparently the wares are much duller. It's not necessarily as sharp or bright as an antique Yixing that were fired in dragon kilns with a pine as fuel. 

[00:13:28] Jason Cohen: So the quality of the wood sources declined over time? 

[00:13:32] Zongjun Li: That's correct. 

[00:13:33] Jason Cohen: And I believe that these alternative fuel sources produced a lot more smoke, more likely to mar the surface of the wares that were being fired inside the kiln. 

[00:13:43] Zongjun Li: Yeah. Yeah. That's why the surface texture and color is much duller. 

[00:13:49] Jason Cohen: Even while being protected by a saggar, the combustion is less complete. The wood is, or the straw is more moist. It doesn't carry the same type of thermal mass.

And so even if it's not directly been touched by smoke, it's still possible to determine the effects or ceramic artists in Yixing can still see the effects today. 

[00:14:07] Zongjun Li: That's correct. That's correct. 

[00:14:09] Pat Penny: It didn't seem when we were there talking to some of our contacts that any of them were particularly excited by the idea of firing in modern times in the dragon kiln. It seemed to be a burden that they all participate in on a once a year basis. 

[00:14:23] Zongjun Li: It's more ceremonial. Interestingly, they told us that the majority of the wares gets fired in the Yixing dragon kiln, not made in Yixing. They're made by artists elsewhere across China. And they send their wares into Yixing and get fired in the once a year ceremonial firing. 

[00:14:42] Pat Penny: Yeah, it adds a good couple hundred or thousand rmb to their selling cost. 

[00:14:47] Jason Cohen: That's certainly worth discussing. Let's continue the conversation about fuel use and then we'll return to that topic because I think that there's quite a bit there culturally that's worth unpacking.

How well developed was the use of fuel? For example, were there different parts of the tree used in different stages of firing? How well controlled and developed was this practice?

[00:15:10] Zongjun Li: Usually the larger and denser trunk of the pine tree is used first. And then you use smaller parts of the tree. 

[00:15:21] Jason Cohen: The firings in Yixing specifically, but China generally with dragon kilns is so developed that they actually use different parts of the tree at different stages of firing.

[00:15:30] Zongjun Li: Yeah. And not to mention even different materials of other fuel source when they're doing the fine adjustment of kiln temperature. 

[00:15:38] Jason Cohen: And so you had mentioned deforestation and the great cuttings. How did the changes in availability of high quality fuel sources like this songshu pine affect the development of kiln technology in Yixing?

As the higher end pine trees were fell, and no longer available for use, what happened to firings? Did they just fire less? Did they... 

[00:16:01] Zongjun Li: They use different materials or they switch to different types of kiln, like downdraft kiln and push back kiln. It's really interesting how the fuel source change inevitably that led to innovation of kiln technology. Because for regular size or average size dragon kiln, it frequently consumes over 6,000 kilos of fuel source. Sometimes more. On average, that's a lot of wood. And many other things use wood too, like building houses, building ships. In the dynastic period of China, wood is really everywhere.

So, that really led to a pretty severe deforestation starting from the north and moving down to the south. And it eventually impact the availability of fuel source for dragon kiln in Yixing. And that's how eventually other types of kilns are invented to reduce the requirement of a large amount of fuel being used for each firing.

[00:17:07] Jason Cohen: Wonderful. I think that this is a great answer. Kiln technology and ceramics firings particularly wood firings is a topic I'm very passionate about. I believe that that's been mentioned at least once or twice on these editorial conversations. 

[00:17:19] Pat Penny: We find a way to talk about it. 

[00:17:21] Jason Cohen: So Pat, starting with you, do you personally have a preference for wood-fired ceramic wares in your tea practice? And if so, why? 

[00:17:30] Pat Penny: I think we know that we're all like Korean wood fired tea ware evangelists. I think upon our first experience of having and using in tea ceremony and tea context wood fired wares, we all pretty early started to gain a preference for them.

But, I think what's more important, and as we think about how we objectively evaluate wares more than a decade later, we continue to come back to a lot of these wood-fired wares because they do have a pronounced effect on tea. It's not that always every wood-fired ware has the right effect for a tea that you're looking for.

But the effects are always interesting and they're much stronger than we often find for a lot of gas or electric fired wares. And so, I have a few of my own wood-fired wares that I like to use for different styles of tea. Some working really well for high roasted oolong, others working well for aged puer.

And I think beyond just the effect it has on tea, there is an intangible I feel like aesthetic benefit that wood fired wares have, that you do not see in gas or electric fired. Whether that's ceramic or more clay material, there is totally an aesthetic element to wood fired wares that is untouchable from other firing sources. 

[00:18:43] Zongjun Li: Yeah, totally agree. Just think about the amount of labors and sweat and tears that went into firing those wares and you know how much of those has built up, thousands of years led to today's technology and instrumentations.

It, it's quite amazing. There is a sense of gravity when you are holding a wood fired wares in your hand, brewing tea. And I, I really like that as I'm drinking tea from a wood fired bowl. 

[00:19:11] Jason Cohen: A clarification. So you had mentioned first Korean wares. Those were introduction to wood-fired wares, but do you now have the same preference for Chinese or Japanese wood fired wares?

[00:19:20] Pat Penny: I do. I do have a few Japanese wood fired tea wares, and then I also have some Chinese wares that we've bought from the same sources, including wood-fired porcelain. And I do feel that there is a difference, a significant difference in the way that tea interacts with it, and then the expression of both flavor and aroma. But once again, that visual difference even if the ware is not marred in any way by the wood firing. So even if it's protected in a saggar, even if it's something like blue and white porcelain with a beautiful and clean finish, there's a depth to the wood fired wares that I don't think is, particularly when you can have them in your hands, I don't think is able to be revealed through gas or electric firing.

[00:19:58] Jason Cohen: We are all on team wood fired. There's this intrinsic beauty to them. There's this depth, there's this idea of the weight of history that comes with these wood-fired wares. Are there also specific attributes that you look for that, that these wares have when paired with tea? Is there something that you would say you find and look for as an indicator of this being a high quality wood fired ware that you need to see in order to either acquire it or to use it consistently in your tea practice?

[00:20:26] Zongjun Li: First of all, definitely visual appearance. Wood fired wares has this, you can even think of it as less perfect visual appearance that I find it to have its own charm. And also, wood fired wares tends to have a higher porosity or rougher surface texture. Sometimes that would have more interaction with the tea that you used in the wares. 

[00:20:52] Pat Penny: When I'm buying those wood-fired wares, as Zongjun said, it's probably a little bit more aesthetic. And then secondarily to add some rounding. So I usually select those to drink with or pair with teas that I want to round out a little bit, whether it's a really high roast element, some slight dank earthiness from a really wet stored puer. That's where I would go for the wood-fired earthen or stoneware.

When it comes to porcelain that's wood-fired, I'm looking for an accentuation of sweet elements, so a lot of high quality wood fired porcelain I've found to really boost some of the mouthfeel elements like gan (甘). Right. So I feel that it's accentuating things like hui tian (回甜), hui gan (回甘). I've done a lot of side-by-sides where I feel like the lingering aroma on the palette is boosted by the interaction with this wood-fired cup.

So on the porcelain side, I feel like that's where I really go beyond just the visuals and and using those to really enhance the tea rather than on the earthen and stone wear side where I'm probably trying to round or detract or remove certain elements of a tea. 

[00:21:54] Zongjun Li: Yeah. It's almost similar to hooking up your stereo with a tube amp. 

[00:22:00] Jason Cohen: Desired distortion. 

[00:22:02] Zongjun Li: Yeah. 

[00:22:03] Jason Cohen: That's a great way of thinking about it for all of the audiophile listeners. Here's an something that we've been working on internally. We've been working on a new commission set for a Yixing teapot triplet, all from the same clay, same shape, same size, but one is wood-fired, one is electric fired and one is gas fired. And we'll be using those throughout a number of different experiments in order to continue writing about them in the book.

How strong is your presupposition that the wood-fired is going to be superior? Mine is very strong. That's why we bothered to commission the set. 

How do we go about putting our personal preferences aside and scientifically testing that there is a difference, that we can taste the difference and we can consistently taste the difference, and that there's a real effect going on caused by the wood firing?

[00:22:55] Pat Penny: I'm certainly coming in with a strong bias as well. I do believe the wood firing is gonna come out on top. Really interested to see where the gas and electric stand against it. Luckily, we're all scientifically minded. We've all worked in the sensory world.

I'm not too worried about us approaching it objectively once we actually start to test. But Jason, I, I would put the question back on you. After founding and leading a sensory and analytics company for many years, how do you plan to gather data utilizing this set in a way that we can share out to readers as more than just our anecdotal findings? 

[00:23:29] Zongjun Li: Blind tasting, experiment grid. Let's go, Jason! 

[00:23:35] Jason Cohen: Zongjun used to work at the same company. He designed many of those blind tasting experimental grid. I was gonna say at this point, I could just give it to the AI. I don't need to do anything.

But, no, I think what we'll have to do is we'll have to do a set of blind tastings. What a lot of groups have attempted to do is actually brew consistently in something like a pingbi bei and then pour it through these different wares blind in order to test the effect.

I'm neutral to negative on that because it is at least possible that there is some activation energy requirement that you don't get hot enough if you're moving across these things or that there's a time-based component in addition to the activation energy. So I think that this idea of brew in a gaiwan, brew in a pingbi bei and then pour it into these different Yixings and test the effect. I think that maybe it works to a smaller degree, but I'm not convinced that you're getting the entire impact. So we'll need to be doing blind tastings. I'm already recording all of the tastings that we're doing, writing them down.

And, on the whole, the wood-fired wares are much more expensive. If it turns out they are not superior. I'll be sad about my prior collecting habits and crushing my preconceived notions in the romanticism of it all. But it'll actually, it'll be a lot less expensive to collect wares in the future if it turns out that this is 

[00:24:51] Pat Penny: It's a good time to save ourselves some money.

[00:24:53] Jason Cohen: Yeah. That this experiment proves us wrong. There is good sides to every outcome. 

[00:24:59] Zongjun Li: Yeah, I definitely agree. 

[00:25:03] Pat Penny: We'll still be collecting them for their visual aesthetic benefits. 

[00:25:08] Jason Cohen: My position is that a lot of the attributes that tea practitioners, particularly skilled tea practitioners that are looking for this, attribute to antique wares is actually a function of wood firing. I would say that wood firing probably counts for a lot of the creation of unique surface textures, and that those surface textures are the primary factor that impact a ware's interaction with tea.

[00:25:39] Pat Penny: Surface texture and composition or just the texture itself?

[00:25:44] Jason Cohen: Well, different compositions will react differently in different firings and different kilns. But the idea that if we're talking about ceramic porcelain and porcelain having a different impact on tea, depending on if it was wood-fired or not, I believe that's a function of surface texture and that surface texture has caused the desirable attributes of the antique wares that were wood fired. People attribute to them being antiques, I believe are really predominantly a function of the surface texture caused by the wood firing.

[00:26:11] Pat Penny: Yeah, I think it's a really fascinating argument. This experiment is gonna help us with it. We'll probably have to do another experiment where we also pull in some antiques. Sounds like a worthy investment. We just need a couple hundred more subscribers. So like, comment, subscribe, share with a friend.

I do think of that argument though makes a lot of sense. Because as we think about the development of a lot of these different wares for, maybe not the most part, but I would say greater than 50%, there has been continued refinement and development of these different art forms from antiquity to today.

So many of the porcelain wares, for example, of Jingdezhen, we still covet the antique wares and find them to have amazing effects. But there's still Jingdezhen being made today. I think the process right has certainly continued to evolve. Artisans continue to refine it. So if it's not the materials and it's not the craftsmanship, then certainly the wood firing element would be one of the few factors I can think of that's left.

[00:27:12] Jason Cohen: And purity of glazes, of course in, in somewhere like Jingdezhen. But yeah, I entirely agree.

Do the ceramic artists of Yixing believe that there is something special or different about wood-fired wares? This is the topic that you began to talk about Zongjun. It sounded as if they did not, that actually that they have a dis preference for wood-fired wares.

[00:27:32] Zongjun Li: Yes. I think they really have a dis preference towards dragon kiln but not necessarily towards wood fired wares.

[00:27:40] Jason Cohen: And why is that? Why would ceramic artists have a dis preference to dragon kilns? 

[00:27:45] Zongjun Li: I think the main reason as we've talked about previously is the change of fuel source. People no longer use pine, the kiln temperature is no longer the same thing as back in the antique ware period. And also it's not really active used kiln. It was fired for purely ceremonial purpose. So I think the dragon kiln in Yixing has lost its original purpose, and now it's really just merely a mascot, a symbol of this thing once exists here.

[00:28:17] Pat Penny: I think we also talked about community and how the dragon kilns... no one, no single family was likely operating it on its own. You had multiple artisans participating in the use of this kiln. The kilns nowadays, the electric kilns of various sorts and gas kilns of various sorts, function much in the same way.

So we visited pushback kiln and an electric kiln where we saw that it took quite a lot of people to run this kiln. Many different artists were bringing in their wares. And so it feels like the focus of the community of firing has shifted. And I, I don't see it shifting back to this dragon kiln.

I think there's also this maybe feeling of while you still have the community aspect of it there is also an independence to the degree, I think, with which all of these functions in Yixing, as we've talked about in the past, are so highly specialized. And so, if you need to as an artist, you can just bring your wares, drop 'em off and go and do the next thing too. So I think there's some independence that's unlocked as well through the way that the community has shifted into these electric and gas kilns. 

[00:29:20] Zongjun Li: Yeah, you can really see this living ecosystem surrounding electrical kiln and gas kiln in Yixing like all of these zhengkou studios, all of these parts studios surrounding all these kilns are quite amazing to see. You don't really see that around dragon kiln anymore.

[00:29:39] Pat Penny: No. We did visit a wood-fired kiln as well, a downdraft kiln. And I'm sure other people fire there, but it really seemed like it was just the guy who was operating the kiln who's doing a lot of firing in that kiln as well. 

[00:29:51] Zongjun Li: Yeah. Yeah. Well, technically it's not really legal. It's really in the gray area of using wood or non gas material as the fuel source to fire Yixings. So, that guy we visited really live up in the mountain, takes quite a ride to get to him. It's not really a very popular thing to use. 

[00:30:12] Jason Cohen: But I do wanna return to that. It's not just the law that has reduced the demand for wood-fired wares. And it's not just dragon kiln wares that, that we don't see anymore. There, there's general lack in China, particularly in Yixing of wood-fired wares. And why is it that these artist opinions differ so heavily from our practitioner opinions?

[00:30:35] Pat Penny: It's definitely easier to fire in a gas and electric kiln, right? There's no doubt about it. 

[00:30:40] Zongjun Li: Yeah. And it's not only easier and also the control of temperature is much more precise in gas kiln or electrical kiln.

It's far easier for the artist to rendered a certain art either artistic effect or a functional effect that they want to achieve within a very narrow temperature range in a gas kiln or electrical kiln.

[00:31:05] Jason Cohen: My last question, do we see any countervailing trends? Is there any hope for the future of wood-fired wares in Yixing?

[00:31:15] Pat Penny: I think we have to create the trend. So I think this experiment will be the start of the trend for wood-fired Yixing wares. 

[00:31:22] Jason Cohen: The shipwreck teaware and woodfire teaware fan club. 

[00:31:26] Pat Penny: We are at the vanguard of the trend right now. 

[00:31:30] Zongjun Li: The wood fired restoration project.

Third wave Yixing, let's go! 

[00:31:35] Pat Penny: Buy your wood-fired Yixing NFTs now to pre-order. 

[00:31:40] Jason Cohen: You really should have done an ICO before publishing this book.

Alright, everyone, 

[00:31:46] Zongjun Li: What we call it? 

[00:31:48] Jason Cohen: What should we call it? Tea Coin?

[00:31:50] Zongjun Li: Tea Coin. 

[00:31:51] Jason Cohen: Cha Coin. 

[00:31:52] Zongjun Li: Zisha Coin, Zisha Nuggets. 

[00:31:57] Jason Cohen: Well, thank you everyone for joining us in this edition of Tea Technique Editorial Conversations. Please join us again for our next conversation, Downdraft Kilns. 

Chapter Discussion Sections: 

• 00:00 Introduction and Team Introduction
• 00:21 Trip Overview and Initial Impressions
• 06:28 Processing Tea in Yiwu
• 13:25 Why Yiwu? The Significance in Puer Tea
• 16:49 Understanding Gushu: Flavor Profiles and Preferences
• 24:14 Exploring and Evaluating the Complexity of Puer Tea
• 31:10 The Influence of Environment on Tea Quality & Body Feel
• 35:57 Flash Brewing and Brewing Techniques
• 40:06 Cultural Experiences and Tea Adventures
• 43:04 Upcoming Projects and Future Plans

Transcript 

[00:00:05] Jason Cohen: Hello everyone. I'm Jason Cohen, the author of an Introduction to the Art and Science of Chinese Tea Ceremony. Here with me today is the Tea Technique Editorial team, Patrick Penny. 

[00:00:14] Pat Penny: Hey, hey! 

[00:00:15] Jason Cohen: Zongjun Li. 

[00:00:17] Zongjun Li: Hello. Hello. 

[00:00:18] Jason Cohen: And Emily Huang. 

[00:00:20] Emily Huang: Hi. 

[00:00:21] Jason Cohen: Today we're discussing our trip reports from the Tea Technique Research Trip 2025 to Yiwu (易武).

[00:00:27] Zongjun Li: Woo. 

[00:00:28] Jason Cohen: This is going to be a casual conversation as casual as this editorial team ever manages to be. We're going to be moderated by Emily Huang, because Emily was not on the trip. For me, Pat and Zongjun, we were in Yiwu processing tea, preparing for a subsequent book. We're gonna write a puer book. It's expected to take a really long time. And this was my maybe fourth time in Yiwu. Zongjun, this was your 

[00:00:59] Zongjun Li: Second time. 

[00:01:00] Jason Cohen: And Pat, this was your 

[00:01:02] Pat Penny: My first time ever. 

[00:01:04] Jason Cohen: And Huang, you have never been to

[00:01:06] Emily Huang: Zero time. 

[00:01:08] Jason Cohen: Emily, I'll turn it over to you. 

[00:01:10] Emily Huang: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I'm super excited to get to interview the three of you on your trip and your experience in Yunnan since I wasn't there. I did see lots of pictures going on Instagram, your group chats and stuff. 

[00:01:26] Emily Huang: Like you mentioned, it's gonna be a casual conversation and I'm gonna start with Pat. This is your first time. Was there any difference in what you imagined?

[00:01:36] Pat Penny: I just love that we're like casual conversation. We literally, we can't just have a casual conversation. Tea technique stays driven. We stay on track. But yeah. Great, great question Emily.

[00:01:46] Pat Penny: Yunnan was a lot more casual I feel like than many of the other places that we have been, both in the way that we interact with people. But I feel like the way that I even saw the approach to some of the tea farming or tea picking. Casual maybe is not the right word for how it has showed up in the agriculture, but it's more about the spirit I think of like letting things be how they are. We saw that show up with the tea plants with really minimal intervention compared to a lot of the other places that we've been. Tea picking when we were in Yunnan didn't look like it started until like seven, eight o'clock in the morning, which is much later than where I've seen in a lot of other places.

[00:02:18] Pat Penny: In general, the schedule had a lot more breath to it. We were able to kind of take space, take stock, stop, and really enjoy some of the moments with these farmers and producers, which it was a nice change of pace 'cause on some of our other trips, it can be very go, go, go. It can be extremely scheduled. And it just felt like Yunnan does not run on a schedule. That's kind of what I got out of it. But interested in Zongjun and Jason's thoughts. 

[00:02:40] Zongjun Li: No, it doesn't, it definitely feels more free. There's no pace or no set schedule.

[00:02:47] Zongjun Li: Just like how the teas are picked, and how the teas are processed. It's all in the flow. 

[00:02:52] Jason Cohen: These trips are, you know, major time commitments. They're, they're budgetary commitments. They're research and focus commitments. So I, I have a, a serious drive to plan them, to make sure that it's going to be worthwhile, that this is the right thing to be doing this year. We only get to do this altogether once a year.

[00:03:11] Jason Cohen: And Yunnan is particularly difficult for that. You know, you message people months in advance and you're like, okay, we're thinking on these dates, and they're like, oh, it probably works. It sounds fine. Message us like a week beforehand. Message us when you're on your way. Message us when you get to town. 

[00:03:26] Pat Penny: That's easy when you're scheduling flights internationally and visas, right? 

[00:03:31] Jason Cohen: Yeah. So it, it does pose a real problem. Usually though, if they tell you they're gonna be there around that time, they're, they're there.

[00:03:40] Jason Cohen: I think for me, the thing that really stuck out this time that was different even than I remembered it. This time we consistently ate with a couple of families. We were having quite a bit of food with and you know in the past it had either cycled between places or something felt celebratory. And so I couldn't say what the everyday cuisine of Yiwu is. But this time having spent so much longer there and more consistently with the families and really just being part of the, the more day to day activities and, and we should talk more about how over the course of a little more than a week, it really felt like we got into a groove, like we were part of village life at some point. But I think the thing that really stuck out to me is that the farmers, the tea makers, the tea farmers, the tea processors got rich and they kept making all the farming food, but now they make all the farming food.

[00:04:35] Jason Cohen: So every single meal, there were three meats on the table. We had a pork, a chicken, and a beef, I think at every single meal. And it was so much more meat and so much more fat. All of this food was cooked in fat. And it all tasted great, but, you know, we come from a rich western diet. I love good French cooking. I, I'll use a stick of butter in my coq au vin. 

[00:05:04] Pat Penny: Jason has a steak three times a day. 

[00:05:06] Jason Cohen: This felt like a lot of fat. A lot. 

[00:05:09] Pat Penny: This was a lot of fat. Yeah. There's not a trip we've had in the past where I gained weight. I always go to China and lose weight, whether for you know, questionable sanitary or eating condition issues or just I'm eating a healthier diet in some cases.

[00:05:23] Pat Penny: This was the first trip we've been on where I gained significant, like I gained four or five pounds when I got back, which is, yeah. Never happened before. And it's like all fat. It's all sodium and it's all fat. I lost muscle. I lost water weight. I gained fat and sodium. 

[00:05:37] Zongjun Li: More fat and more tea. I hope the airline didn't charge you a extra on your weight gains.

[00:05:43] Zongjun Li: I would say it's absolutely true. I mean, we also come in a very different season in the past. It's right in the middle of tea harvest season. We come right at the window of the season was about to begin. So, there were a lot of laborious work. People are picking tea, people are processing tea. So, I feel like the diet was a little bit a supplement all of the hard works we've been putting in. 

[00:06:08] Pat Penny: Yeah. We just weren't the ones doing the hard work. You know, except for our, our processing days and nights here and there. We weren't really the pickers. I think the pickers are the ones who really needed all that extra calories.

[00:06:19] Emily Huang: Yeah. I was gonna say, I saw some pictures of you guys doing hard work, like actual sweaty, you know, 

[00:06:26] Pat Penny: There, there were a few hours, there were a few hours. So, we, we had a few different processing days, which I think it's probably worth talking about in depth. 

[00:06:33] Emily Huang: Yeah. 

[00:06:33] Pat Penny: So, yeah, we had a full day of processing in Gaoshan (高山) where we really went through everything up to the drying stage. We were there when the tea was picked the night before. We got to see some of the withering of this leaf. We did visit the garden where these leaves were picked from. And then, we were doing the shaqing (杀青) by ourselves, so we were given a little bit of guidance. But really it was, it was pretty hands off. And we were in front of the wok for, depending on who was firing, somewhere between probably 14 and 20 minutes, uh 

[00:07:01] Emily Huang: mm-hmm. 

[00:07:01] Pat Penny: And it was kind of, you know, we are giving pointers here and there, but if the tea is bad, it's our fault. If the tea is good, it's probably the teas. Thankfully the tea was pretty good.

[00:07:11] Pat Penny: But then from there, we were doing the rounian (揉捻), the rolling as well. And so we are actually all really interested to find out whose tea tastes best in the next couple months when we get it. 'Cause I, I rolled real hard and heavy. I was not, our host told us you can't over-roll the tea. And I took that to heart, so I really rolled the hell outta that tea. Whereas, you know, Zongjun was delicate and gentle with his tea. He was treating it like a good friend. And Jason, Jason did something in between. And we had a chance to taste that tea a few days later, and maybe we'll talk about this after we talk about processing.

[00:07:43] Pat Penny: But following that experience in Yiwu Village, we had a few nights in a row where we got to do both shaqing with a little bit more guidance as well as a good amount of rolling and spreading the leaves, checking on withered leaves. So we, we had quite a lot of different opportunities to touch leaf from different areas, in different parts of the processing stage, and get a better understanding of how the leaf particularly depending on what the weather was like, reacts to all these different stages of processing, which I feel like you just can't get without being there in person. So that was amazing. 

[00:08:13] Jason Cohen: I'd also say there's some real stylistic differences between the various families, that certain families wanted the tea made in certain ways, and we get to the other family and they're like, oh no, it's not, this is not how we do it.

[00:08:25] Jason Cohen: I wouldn't not say that one is good or one is bad, but there's certainly, even within a family, one of the families does their own processing and they do contract processing. And the style is different between their own processing and the, the tea's that's produced on contract.

[00:08:39] Jason Cohen: And so, would I say, we developed our own style? Absolutely not. But trying to pick up and to follow these different pointers and then realizing that these pointers are actually conflicting and realizing that there's, that there's real decision making and different styles and different objectives throughout this processing I think was a pretty interesting learning. 'Cause you're, you're somewhat used to that across areas. Zongjun and I processed tea two years ago in Jingmai (景迈). And that was quite different as well. 

[00:09:07] Zongjun Li: Oh, super different. 

[00:09:08] Jason Cohen: Yeah. And the leaf responded really differently. And so this time processing everything from the families that we are with that don't do any taidi cha (台地茶) but processing their xiaoshu (小树) village tea versus processing, I think the nicest thing that we were allowed to touch was medium age gushu (古树).

[00:09:28] Pat Penny: Oh, dude. They were handing you Yibang (倚邦), you don't remember that?

[00:09:33] Jason Cohen: There's a video where they say that, but fear not. It was not. 

[00:09:37] Zongjun Li: They were kidding. 

[00:09:39] Pat Penny: You've done this once before. Here's, here's one of the most expensive teas we're gonna get this year. 

[00:09:44] Emily Huang: Okay. 

[00:09:45] Zongjun Li: I was just super surprised that, you know, we, we've done processing in other places too, outside of Yunnan. And we've seen how tea being treated in different ways and I was just surprised at how much steaming is actually going on in the pan frying process. So it's not really just frying the tea.

[00:10:06] Emily Huang: Mm-hmm. 

[00:10:06] Zongjun Li: At some stage you have cadence of trying to compile the tea together to keep the moisture up in the pile so that it build up some sort of a steam inside. So it's really a mixture of frying and steaming, which I feel like that's what gives the Yiwu tea a very unique flavor as well. And also, people's decision making also takes account into how the tea will be aged in the future. So it's not only just, you know, thinking about how the tea is going to taste right now, but also thinking ahead in the future. So that's also something very unique.

[00:10:45] Emily Huang: Wow. It sounds like a really unforgettable experience. I wonder if any of your, your hands all 10 fingers are here? 

[00:10:51] Pat Penny: Yo, it, it hurts so much. Like Jason, Jason was a boss. I'm not even gonna lie. Like, I'd, I'd like to not inflate his ego, but like his hands were just made of steel. And the first time we were processing like five minutes in, I'm okay. 10 minutes in, I'm like sweating and I'm feeling it in my hands. And when I'm really getting to the point where that leaf has a lot of moisture, that's like steaming in there. I just, you could only touch the leaf for a few seconds at a time. And I was taking my hands off for as long as I could, letting them cool, going back in.

[00:11:20] Pat Penny: I remember going into it, they were giving us kind of, not really giving us the option, but saying you could do it without gloves, but no one does. And I was like, well, yeah, we've, we've fired tea before. I could do it without gloves. Thank God I was wearing gloves. It was so hot. I was such a baby with it.

[00:11:35] Pat Penny: But yeah, Jason, you were a boss. 

[00:11:37] Jason Cohen: It was a different level of heat. I would say that's all institute days going rock climbing in Hunters in central Pennsylvania. And coming back to the tea house and brewing tea with your oozing raw fingers. I think I've lost all feeling 

[00:11:50] Pat Penny: Hot gaiwan. Yeah. 

[00:11:51] Jason Cohen: Yeah. I think I've just lost all feeling my fingertips. 

[00:11:56] Zongjun Li: You know, all of my fingers have the kind 

[00:11:58] Emily Huang: I wanna know if Zongjun still has all his fingers. 

[00:12:00] Zongjun Li: All of my fingers have the round of blister every time I touched the wok.

[00:12:05] Zongjun Li: But it disappeared, you know, after a few hours. But 

[00:12:07] Pat Penny: I actually did get a gnarly burn from the wok too. 

[00:12:11] Zongjun Li: Yeah. 

[00:12:12] Jason Cohen: That wok was, it was like, it was 450, I think. 

[00:12:15] Pat Penny: They said that it was dialed in at 280 to 300 C. So yeah, it was pretty hot. 

[00:12:23] Emily Huang: Oh wow. 280. That is 

[00:12:25] Zongjun Li: It's pretty hot in the area where you need to insert your finger all the way down to the bottom of the leaf pile and try to flip it.

[00:12:33] Zongjun Li: That is like the most challenging 

[00:12:35] Jason Cohen: That, that's even hotter than I said. That's 536. Fahrenheit. 

[00:12:39] Zongjun Li: Oh, well, 

[00:12:41] Pat Penny: Felt like it when I, when my skin touched it, literally milliseconds. And you heard my skin sizzle and that wasn't even the hotspot. I was, I was bacon on that wok. It was crazy how fast it sizzled.

[00:12:52] Emily Huang: Oh my God. 

[00:12:53] Pat Penny: It smelled good. It smelled like bacon. 

[00:12:54] Zongjun Li: Medium rare. 

[00:12:56] Emily Huang: Smelled like bacon! 

[00:12:58] Pat Penny: Kosher bacon. 

[00:13:01] Jason Cohen: If Zongjun was ever gonna have cannibalistic tendencies.

[00:13:06] Jason Cohen: Find out who the zombie candidate is. 

[00:13:09] Emily Huang: Wow.

[00:13:09] Zongjun Li: We can, 

[00:13:10] Emily Huang: That sounded, that sounded amazing. I, I don't think I would be able to withstand that heat and that wok and the steaming and wow. 

[00:13:20] Pat Penny: You'll, you'll do it with us next time, Emily. It's okay. 

[00:13:22] Emily Huang: Yes, yes. 

[00:13:23] Jason Cohen: You'll come.

[00:13:24] Emily Huang: Yeah. And so, my next question, I know we went into a little bit of the processing, but I wonder if you guys can share with our listeners, why Yiwu? How is it important in the puer world? Or what specialty does it have? What role does it play? Why did we choose to go to Yiwu?

[00:13:43] Jason Cohen: I guess there's two answers for that. On the one side, you know, we prepare for this. It sometimes takes a few years. So Zongjun and I went two years ago to go establish these relationships to meet people, to say, here are the books that we've currently written. Here's what we're writing, here's our plans and what we want to do. Share with them the idea of this puer book. Explain the scope and the scale. Explain how we work. And generally we try to make a good impression. I think for the most part most of the tea world likes us. And then say, can we come back? Can we, are, are you willing to do this? And to work with us in this way? And so we got a yes from a couple different places in Yunnan.

[00:14:22] Jason Cohen: One of them was Yiwu and I thought that we would return to Yiwu, that we would start in Yiwu because both six famous tea mountains, some of the earliest puer processing, highest concentration of gushu, of old trees. And Yiwu was, in many ways, it was spared a lot of the more contemporary agriculture that started in Yunnan during the puer bubble. And so, the processing and some of the, these ideals have changed much less. I mean, in one of the villages that we were in, they didn't even have electricity, running water until 2010. Other villages were even later. Didn't have any electricity until after 2006 after 2010, 26, 2014 or about.

[00:15:12] Jason Cohen: So I think that in many ways, if you're gonna start somewhere trying to write a book about puer, you have to start in Yiwu but the eventual plan is to hit all the major production areas. Zongjun and I have been to Jingmai together. Next year maybe, we'll see how things go, we might do Menghai (勐海). We have plans for Lincang (临沧). Yeah, plans for a lot of places. 

[00:15:38] Zongjun Li: Yeah, it's kind of serendipitous in a way that a lot of people were talking about, you know, you start from Yiwu, you end in Yiwu.

[00:15:46] Zongjun Li: And that's might be, you know, our way of learning tea and drink tea in Yunnan too. 'Cause, Yiwu is famous for all of its early production and exportation through the cha ma gudao (茶马古道), the tea horse trade route. And when you're thinking about puer, normally you would first go to Puer City, which is the actual place. It's used to be the trading center of all teas in Yunnan.

[00:16:08] Zongjun Li: But Yiwu is actually the original trading center of all of the surrounding area in that place in Xishuangbanna, and it's really the center of the universe out there in the corner of Yunnan. And it's a pretty, pretty interesting spot to see how all of the early teas got process, got famous, got sent to different places. And how it played as a major role in different tea cultures around the different corners of the world.

[00:16:37] Zongjun Li: So, I feel like we pick a very interesting spot to start and it would be a interesting comparison with other tea production regions in Yunnan starting from there. 

[00:16:47] Emily Huang: Wow. Makes sense now. And one thing that really caught my eye when I was reading the trip report was the profile of gushu and how it's kind of different to what we were used to or what we've experienced so far about the flavor profile that it gives. Can you guys tell me a little bit more about that and why do you think that is?

[00:17:12] Jason Cohen: For me, I think the biggest thing is learning about the gradations even within gushu. I mean the difference between village tea, forest tea, deep forest tea, the difference between gushu that could be a hundred years old, or gushu that could be 300 years old, gushu that is gaogan (高竿) that comes from a taller, arbor tree, gushu that's hidden in a keng (坑). They use the same terms like they do in Wuyi (武夷) so it's hidden in a pit. It has less sunlight and so it grows smaller. The idea that gushu is always dashu (大树) that it's always big and in the forest, or it's always tall or it has these huge trunks isn't the case.

[00:17:57] Jason Cohen: And I think that a lot of what I had learned to identify, particularly from outside of Yiwu as gushu tea is actually the taste of dashu tree, of big tree, which may or may not be old, but it has a pretty specific flavor and flavor reference and it's one that I still prefer. But a lot of the highest end Yiwu trees are much more subtle and much lighter flavored than the standard dashu counterparts.

[00:18:36] Jason Cohen: And so there, there were things that I found that made sense and that there were things that were certainly new to me that are unique to Yiwu. And I think it's a matter, partially a matter of preference and also partially a matter of understanding that, you know, we're talking about, for the most part, with exceptions, we're talking about da ye (大叶) cultivar.

[00:18:57] Jason Cohen: But as ever in tea, fractal complexity, da ye is not truly a single cultivar. There are variations within da ye and there are certain families with certain opinions about which teas are true da ye and which are not.

[00:19:17] Zongjun Li: It's um, pretty chaotic and messy. Just like the terroir of Yunnan in a way.

[00:19:21] Zongjun Li: But I, I know what you're talking about Jason about the dashu flavor. It's the very gamey, like wild flavor that you are frequently end up tasting a lot of Yunnan tea. And it's really not the case for people's quality standard in Yiwu. They are really seeking the very ethereal, light body, floral, very elegant kind of a taste in the tea versus this very robust, very wild strong masculine kind of taste that we used to drink back in the days.

[00:19:56] Zongjun Li: Of which, you know, it's really a regional preference too. 'Cause if you venture into Menghai and people there, they love the robustness from the tea. They talk about baqi (霸气) in Menghai. That's something that the people in Yiwu doesn't necessarily agree with.

[00:20:12] Zongjun Li: And, that's very interesting. And also, tasting all of these, like these single trees or small batch picks versus the mixed picked, which was really the more traditional way of picking. People back in the days, they don't really do like single tree processing. Was very interesting, the whole experience.

[00:20:32] Zongjun Li: I can understand how people were saying that a single tree can taste very one dimensional. For us it was really analytical tasting. We are tasting a single element of a region or of one tree. And then we can really assess the difference between a gaogan versus a normal dashu or a even a xiaoshu.

[00:20:53] Zongjun Li: And then we can see how, you know, the terroir, the genetics played as a role, as a impact to the flavor profile which was very interesting. 

[00:21:01] Jason Cohen: The only thing I would push back on though is, is, is, I agree with everything you said about the tasting, the danzhus (单株), but there were some families that did have a preference for that yesheng (野生), wild cultivar flavor in Yiwu. There were trees that have that flavor that are still considered high quality. They're still expensive trees. It was just some families that took a pretty militant stance and said, oh no, this is not, this is not what's good. This is not what Yiwu is known for. This is not what Yiwu is best at. And, 

[00:21:35] Pat Penny: Or, or even to the extent that believing that those trees are not meant for consumption, that that certain flavor that denotes wild means that actually it was probably never really interacted with by humans in a way to make it more consumable or more in harmony with kind of, you know, our bodies in our nature.

[00:21:53] Jason Cohen: Yeah. And, and I don't know. I, I, I had a preference for it, and I think that I still have a non-exclusive preference for the yesheng flavor. But I certainly understand why those families want to preserve this idea of a Yiwu profile. 

[00:22:13] Pat Penny: Yeah. I, I, I agree. And I, I think a lot of what you both talked about on the flavor touches a lot of maybe what Emily was curious about from the trip report that I was writing.

[00:22:22] Pat Penny: There was definitely when I came into this experience, there was a, a profile that I associated with gushu, which I agree with Jason, maybe was more of that dashu large tree profile. And actually it was probably more predominantly outside of Yiwu. I think I had more examples of younger maybe, or like large tree gushu from Menghai area and from Lincang and various other areas that really gave a very specific kind of mouthfeel and certain flavor profile. And so when we were drinking these teas in Yiwu that were, you know, verifiably from, directly from the source and we knew that they were gushu there was, there was times where I really had to kind of readjust what I thought of as my key indicators of gushu tea specific to Yiwu. So no longer this is what gushu tastes like, but this is what Yiwu gushu tastes like from this area, right? Maybe from, from this slope, or this is more forest versus village gushu. And trying to really break down those smaller and smaller pieces of distinction to build back up my idea of what gushu tastes like now.

[00:23:22] Pat Penny: I have kind of a framework of this is at least within Yiwu. What some of these different gradients of gushu could taste like. And now I have this whole other black box of this is what I think other gushu tastes like, and now we have to go and actually visit Menghai and visit some of these other areas. So I can once again break down into finer components as to the fractal nature of, of tea that Jason talked about. 

[00:23:43] Emily Huang: That's so interesting. To, to have it. It's basically what, you know, what Jason wrote, it's very, a lot similar to the whole wine culture in the Western world. And it's really interesting 'cause somehow it got me thinking like how I built up my flavor profile. How did I instead of building it from, you know, this is what oolong tastes like in this region, oolong tastes like in this region, but somehow I have it the other way around. It's like, this is what oolong tastes like. But then there's all different ones. This is what puer tastes like, but then there's all different ones. But it probably shouldn't be this way. And the whole bottom, somehow I have it visually horizontally, but it should be bottom up from the region. And I think that's super interesting this matrix in my mind of, of it can go from different ways. 

[00:24:33] Pat Penny: It's interesting hearing you talk about it and you know, this is a audio medium for our listeners, but like you're kind of gesticulating and I can see how you're trying to describe it. And I think it speaks to a little bit of what we talked about in Book One around pedagogy, right? So as you're learning, your framework changes.

[00:24:48] Pat Penny: And so I think this was an experience that really changed my framework at how I look at structuring in my mind, how I understand puer. And so now I have this really concrete and detailed structure, specifically around Yiwu and differentiating xiaoshu from dashu and gushu from non gushu teas and village and forest tea. But I don't, I still don't have that framework for other areas.

[00:25:10] Pat Penny: And so, for our listeners, as you're drinking samples that you're getting and as you're trying to learn what different teas taste like from different regions, I think maybe just trying to always keep an open mind. Don't lock in exactly what you believe to be the truth is at any given point, let other samples take you on a ride. 'Cause I think for me, I came in with some preconceived notions when we went into Yiwu and it took a day or two to get around a lot of them. Like, you know, I was drinking tea for 15 years. I've had a lot of examples of gushu. But you know, the truth was I hadn't had 

[00:25:40] Emily Huang: Yiwu gushu 

[00:25:41] Pat Penny: as many examples of young Yiwu gushu or Yiwu gushu from certain areas of forests, right? So I think allow yourself to continue building that framework. Don't, don't lock into any specific mindset. 

[00:25:52] Zongjun Li: Yeah. 

[00:25:53] Pat Penny: Ever. 

[00:25:53] Jason Cohen: Don't, and don't over index on references and samples until you're in the place. You don't really have a clear indication of the quality level in which you're drinking at. There are things that I used to like that now I think are just okay.

[00:26:10] Jason Cohen: And there are things that I didn't have a conception of five years ago, 10 years ago, that's now it's like, all right, now we're really drinking at a different level. Now we're doing something else. 

[00:26:22] Emily Huang: Mm. 

[00:26:22] Pat Penny: There's something we love, Jason, just a year ago that we bought when we were in Taiwan. We loved it so much that you bought it again this year, and we both still like it, but I think our, our scales have been recalibrated. Oh, we don't feel like we bought a bad tea, but I think a year ago was a better tea in my mind than it is now. 

[00:26:40] Jason Cohen: Yeah, the gradations of quality are in some ways endless. You know, when we were in Yiwu hearing people talk about other people's danzhu, it's like, why would you make a danzhu outta that tree? 

[00:26:51] Pat Penny: What an idiot. They process that into a danzhu?! That tree is so mid.

[00:26:58] Zongjun Li: It's probably some rich Guangdong or Fujian lao ban (“boss”), you know, end up commissioning. 

[00:27:04] Jason Cohen: They talk about it, the lao bans who come in who don't really know that much, who have enough money, and they're like, all right, pick me a tree. And there's. You know, they're not gonna know, or, or they're not talking to the right, or those people don't have access to the right.

[00:27:17] Zongjun Li: That one over there. 

[00:27:20] Jason Cohen: Take your pick. 

[00:27:22] Pat Penny: Hey, Zongjun's tea was a lao ban collab. So don't, don't talk bad about the lao bans. 

[00:27:26] Jason Cohen: Yeah, but the Hubei man didn't buy enough. 

[00:27:28] Pat Penny: Oh, that's right. That's right. 

[00:27:29] Jason Cohen: Any, any danzhu. 

[00:27:31] Zongjun Li: As I was frying my tea in Gaoshan, some like Dongbei lao ban, just like swoop in. And then was like, can I fry your tea too? And then just like start taking the gloves from my hands. 

[00:27:44] Pat Penny: He must have thought it was just like a hands-on installation. 

[00:27:47] Pat Penny: You can just walk in and just start doing it. Anyone can do it. Yeah. 

[00:27:52] Zongjun Li: But he was being super nice about it. Like he did the whole cigarette exchange ceremony, like, give everyone a cigarette and then, patting our shoulder, asking questions and it just like started frying out.

[00:28:05] Jason Cohen: And then he took, and then he took over frying tea from Zongjun on Zongjun's personal batch. 

[00:28:10] Zongjun Li: Like very anxiously waiting aside.

[00:28:14] Jason Cohen: He only got a few minutes in. Zongjun took back over. But it was, 

[00:28:17] Pat Penny: We were told that Zongjun's heat management on his wok firing after we tasted all of our teas supposedly was the best. And so I think the Hebei gemen helped out a little bit. 

[00:28:26] Jason Cohen: That man was used to being hands on. He did not shy away from the heat. 

[00:28:31] Pat Penny: He was doing a little flippy fun time, though. He was not listening to the advice. 

[00:28:36] Jason Cohen: He lost a few leaves.

[00:28:38] Jason Cohen: But, back to that major point. Don't over index. 

[00:28:42] Jason Cohen: I entirely agree with what you were saying, Pat, but the other thing is people get a sample, particularly Western world, you're not in China, right? You have some various levels of access to these types of things.

[00:28:53] Jason Cohen: And so someone sees something. And they say, oh wow, I get to try this set of four gaogan trees, right? Four trees blended gaogan. And then they say, okay, now this is what gaogan tastes like, or this is what, you know, this area tastes like. Or this is a new step up. And it might be right, it might be true.

[00:29:12] Jason Cohen: But overindexing on that kind of thing. Overindexing on specific attributes when you haven't tasted across a range is very difficult to do. And I would say that even in Yiwu, there's not agreement. Even amongst the people making the tea there's not agreement on what it should taste like.

[00:29:30] Emily Huang: Mm-hmm. 

[00:29:30] Jason Cohen: That type of side snipping, that type of commentary, tasting other people's tea and later, discussing what was good about this, what was bad about this?

[00:29:40] Jason Cohen: And, I think that was the most number of danzhus that I've ever tasted. They did not all taste alike, and there was definitely commentary back and forth between different groups and different families that this is good for this reason, this is bad for this reason. And maybe you agree with them and maybe you don't. The different families were producing different things and have different techniques. But, if there's no agreement amongst the makers, if there's no agreement amongst the people who have the best access that you can have, then how do you think that you're going to have agreement having tasted somewhere between zero, and I'm gonna guess less than 10 danzhus. 

[00:30:13] Zongjun Li: Yeah. One thing that we really learned is listen to your body. How your body feels about it instead of trying to give a very deep assessment on the flavors and trying to make sense out of those flavor attributes I think is something that we found it actually quite useful.

[00:30:32] Emily Huang: Mm. 

[00:30:33] Zongjun Li: It's a little bit, you know, kind of TCME. Like in the beginning, but you actually do end up feeling different effects on your body. And that's something very quite interesting.

[00:30:46] Zongjun Li: One thing that Yunnan really doesn't lack is diversity. You have diversity of opinions, you have diversity of tea, you have diversities of food, you have diversity of people and culture. You know, it's really one messy place. And follow your true heart. You know, you, you end up feeling the best with the xiaoshu. You know, great. Congratulations, that will save you a lot of money in the future. 

[00:31:10] Jason Cohen: But to be clear, and to Pat's point, 'cause he wrote about this in his trip report, is that deep forest xiaoshu, deep forest trees that are 30 years old, 40 years old, 50 years old, that are grown in a natural environment, that are unintended or not overly pruned.

[00:31:26] Zongjun Li: Yeah, that taste great. 

[00:31:27] Jason Cohen: Yeah. They're gonna be better than some gushu trees that are right in the village, right next to someone's AC

[00:31:34] Zongjun Li: the highways, 

[00:31:35] Jason Cohen: You know, or the new highway that's been built right through it with the lorry trucks dumping diesel fumes on them. The, the environment counts for a lot. The environment counts for, I would say, the most. In aggregate, I'm agreeing with you Zongjun that yeah, the, it's not, for a lack of a better word, it's not woo.

[00:31:55] Jason Cohen: If you feel the constriction of your throat, if you feel the tightness in your jaw, if you feel like you want to drink more versus if you want to drink less. One of the amazing things was we were drinking so much tea, never once did it turn our stomach. In Yiwu drinking young Yiwu, Yiwu that was 

[00:32:11] Zongjun Li: Oh yeah.

[00:32:12] Jason Cohen: two weeks ago, a week ago, yesterday, grabbing partially dried young Yiwu tea, even forest xiaoshu and brewing eight grams in an overflowing gaiwan. And just going 25 brews on it. It felt fine. It never turned our stomachs. 

[00:32:31] Pat Penny: The one thing that I think made us all feel not great was actually a sample that we brought, right? It was an example of Yiwu and we're like three or four brews in and like, you know, the, our, our hosts are kind of pointing out to us some of the less positive features of the tea. And so there might have been some bias there, but you know, we were all starting to feel it and one of the hosts' fathers is kinda like, you know what, I'm gonna whip out a really good tea 'cause I can see you're all suffering now.

[00:32:56] Pat Penny: And so, this really nice, I think that was 2009 Guafengzhai (刮风寨) comes out and suddenly you're just like, oh, my stomach feels better now, I'm okay. But yeah, to, to your point, I think, you know, we had heard the advice many times, on all these trips and in the past, that to listen to your body, beyond just your palate. Let your body indicate to you the quality of the tea. But never so clearly as in Yiwu did I feel it particularly with young tea. 

[00:33:18] Pat Penny: In many other spots, young tea definitely still turns your stomach. Maocha (毛茶) almost killed Zongjun last year.

[00:33:23] Pat Penny: But the young tea in Yiwu, like Jason hammered home, still felt so clean, clear, and like, honestly healthy on your body. Sometimes high doses of tea don't feel amazing. I was a little worried going into this trip how much young maocha we were gonna drink, what that was gonna do to our stomachs, but yeah, not a single issue related to drinking young maocha. Issues related to eating lots of spicy peppers, salty food, and lots of lard. But the maocha, never a problem. 

[00:33:52] Emily Huang: After all this, it really just reminded me of how next time whatever tea I'm tasting, listen to my body, let my body and my palate, of course, we can still be analytical and stuff, but also, be aware of these, you know, biological responses as well.

[00:34:08] Emily Huang: And another thing is the diversity. So much that I'm looking forward to your next trip and and all the other discussions on the other parts of Yunnan and digging into the different flavor profiles. 

[00:34:22] Emily Huang: Baqi. I really wanna know what baqi in tea means and I wanna try that.

[00:34:29] Emily Huang: Is there something that you wanna share, like a little preview to our listeners where they can expect in the puer tea, or would you, maybe that's a secret for now?

[00:34:40] Jason Cohen: It's less of a secret and more that we don't know how long, how long do we think this book is gonna take to write? I think it's gonna be at least another two, three years of research before we actually start writing.

[00:34:52] Pat Penny: We, we should probably finish the Yixing book too. 

[00:34:55] Jason Cohen: We're working on it. We're gonna get back in a groove after, after this trip. 

[00:35:00] Zongjun Li: I'll have a kid. Pat will have two kid by the time this book gets started. 

[00:35:05] Jason Cohen: Something you need to tell us Zongjun?

[00:35:08] Pat Penny: When we were, so everyone you're hearing it now for the first time. When we were in Yiwu, Zongjun met a Yibang princess. He's about to inherit a ton of gushu. You really like, if you don't know Zongjun yet, start hitting him up on his dms 'cause you're gonna want to know this guy.

[00:35:24] Emily Huang: Wow. I wanna know more about that. We'll connect offline. 

[00:35:27] Pat Penny: Emily was like, I wanna find a Yibang princess. 

[00:35:31] Jason Cohen: It was interesting. So, so we always write our trip reports independently, separately. And I think for me, Pat, within your trip report, the thing that really stood out to me as maybe, I dunno if different is the right word, but where we took a difference in opinion, one was your ideas on brewing, going back to predominantly flash brewing. Usually our takeaways are pretty aligned and we debate everything pretty heavily. That didn't even occur to me until I read your trip report and yeah, if you want to talk about that, I, I thought that, that was a difference.

[00:36:08] Pat Penny: So this past weekend, Jason and I were just on a tea call together and we're casually drinking a Luoshuidong (落水洞) gaogan gushu danzhu as we do, you know, 2023. And we're brewing this tea and Jason had already read my trip report at this point, but both of us, you and I, were both flash brewing.

[00:36:25] Pat Penny: And I think for me, it was being in Yiwu and being in Yunnan and experiencing this flash brewing, particularly experiencing the specific characteristics that the processors and the farmers that we had studied and stayed with, pointed out. I think for me it just, those resonated as characteristics that I really enjoy in Yiwu tea.

[00:36:44] Pat Penny: And so, you know, I'm not going to exclusively flash brew Yiwu tea in the future. But I think I'm gonna start incorporating it again. Not like I've never flash brewed in my life, but definitely I did a lot of flash brewing in the first year or two studying tea. And then, we studied with a lot of Taiwanese teachers. I moved to a slightly different brewing methodology but particularly for puer and particularly for Yiwu puer in the future, at least when I'm evaluating a tea, I think that's where I'm gonna start. Because that's where processors are starting. That's kind of the gold standard for what these farmers and processor are looking for. And so I, I'll start there. And then I'll test tea just like you always should. I'll, I'll see different ratios and different methods to find out what I like the best.

[00:37:25] Pat Penny: But the sweetness, the aftertaste, a lot of the lighter, more ethereal floral flavors. All of these things come out in spades in Yiwu tea when you flash brew particularly when you're not in Yiwu and your water is actually 212 degrees boiling. Yeah. Fahrenheit. That helps a little bit too. 

[00:37:41] Jason Cohen: Zongjun, what, was the most surprising thing that you read in Pat's trip report?

[00:37:46] Zongjun Li: Surprising thing that I read. 

[00:37:49] Jason Cohen: What's something that Pat wrote about that you don't, you didn't, I don't, wouldn't say you disagree with, but for me, unless we're doing experimentation things, I don't really plan too much on changing my brewing. I didn't feel like I went to Yiwu and learned a whole lot about brewing.

[00:38:06] Zongjun Li: That, I would agree with you, Jason, but I would also agree with Pat that it's really how people brew tea over there. So, probably, maintaining at least a few brews of flash brewing just to have the reference. I think it's important in the future to set a reference for your own knowledge.

[00:38:24] Zongjun Li: But, it doesn't really changed the way of my brain like how the Chaozhou (潮州) grandpas changed tea consumption habit. I'm still more Chaozhou than Yiwu in terms of brewing method. 

[00:38:38] Jason Cohen: I've just become such a Yixing bro hanging out with me and all these Yixing teapots. I'm not against flash brewing. It's just most of the time that I'm gonna pick up a tea, particularly great tea, probably no matter how good it is, I don't think I want to go 22 brews. 

[00:38:54] Pat Penny: I understand that. 

[00:38:55] Jason Cohen: Modify my dosage and get it a little bit stronger and a little more full flavored. And, go in 10 brew on a tea where each brew is a little bit stronger. Maintaining that balance, picking the right ware, picking the right dosage, but pure flash for the entire session just feels, no, tedious isn't the right word. It's just not the flavor profile that I want. 

[00:39:16] Pat Penny: Yeah, and sometimes it's not the time that you have, right? I mean, you and I spent an hour and a half on Saturday drinking this Luoshuidong gaogan gushu danzhu and 

[00:39:25] Zongjun Li: an hour and a half. 

[00:39:27] Pat Penny: Hour and a half. And that, that, no, that barely cut into the tea. I mean, 

[00:39:31] Zongjun Li: it was still going.

[00:39:31] Pat Penny: The tea was still going so strong. I threw it in a thermos. I had it in a thermos later that day. I refilled the thermos. It was still so strong. I boiled it the next day. And that tea, honestly, probably did not give out. I just decided I was done with it. 

[00:39:45] Jason Cohen: Pat probably went further than me. I did laoren cha for three rounds on it and then boiled it the next day.

[00:39:51] Pat Penny: Yeah. So flash is not always the right choice, depending on time either. And, you know, we use six grams of that tea. That's a lot of tea of that caliber to be using. Zongjun wasn't surprised about anything in my trip report because I didn't write about the Wa bar that we went to.

[00:40:06] Jason Cohen: Yeah. Zongjun did not make friends with 

[00:40:09] Zongjun Li: Oh, yeah. Tell, tell me more about that. 

[00:40:11] Jason Cohen: We've made friends with the Wa Tribe. Pat and I are now honorary Wa tribe members. We can spitfire with the best of them. 

[00:40:19] Pat Penny: We did meet some Wa princesses, but there was like two or three Hani there as well.

[00:40:23] Pat Penny: There was, well, 

[00:40:23] Jason Cohen: The Hani tribe was visiting the Wa. 

[00:40:26] Pat Penny: Yeah. And so it was Hani people, Wa people, and two Jews. Two, two blonde hair, blue eyed Jews. 

[00:40:33] Jason Cohen: And, and so, so now opposite question from Pat.

[00:40:37] Jason Cohen: What, what did you disagree? Is there anything that either of you disagreed about in my trip report? 

[00:40:44] Pat Penny: I just hated it. Just, it just fucking sucked. 

[00:40:48] Jason Cohen: 40 pages in, Pat's, like, huh. 

[00:40:52] Pat Penny: 40 pages in. That's when I was just like, you know what, no, I don't like this. No I can honestly say that as I, so I read yours after writing mine, right? And I was very happy. Even some of the linguistic choices that we both made, there was some alignment there. So it just, it was enjoyable reading your take after mine and seeing like, oh, you know, for the most part we, we, took away a lot of the same things.

[00:41:16] Pat Penny: We also didn't write about our shaokao experience. The shaokao was in Kunming, so, yeah, we didn't write about anything in Kunming. There was the one really great shaokao experience. Well, we actually did go to shaokao multiple times when we were in Yiwu.

[00:41:28] Pat Penny: But the one that really sticks in my mind, other than having it with our host family was when we were watching the girl heat the grill up with a hair dryer. 

[00:41:35] Zongjun Li: Oh yeah. 

[00:41:36] Pat Penny: That's the real flavor of Yiwu right there is like you've got a electric hair dryer just sitting on the grill.

[00:41:42] Jason Cohen: On the grill. 

[00:41:42] Pat Penny: Sitting directly on the grill, turned on to blow air onto the charcoal to heat it up charcoal.

[00:41:47] Pat Penny: That was amazing. That meat was delicious. 

[00:41:51] Jason Cohen: That was good, but nothing, nothing will ever be better than Kunming shaokao. 

[00:41:55] Pat Penny: Yeah. That was next level. That was next level. 

[00:41:58] Jason Cohen: Zongjun told me that Xian shaokao can compare and I was severely disappointed. 

[00:42:03] Zongjun Li: Really? 

[00:42:05] Jason Cohen: They banned charcoal within the walled city.

[00:42:08] Zongjun Li: Really? Wow. That's bad. 

[00:42:10] Jason Cohen: No more charcoal. 

[00:42:12] Zongjun Li: I haven't been back to Xian for years, but it used to be really good. 

[00:42:17] Jason Cohen: Nah, nothing on Kunming. Not even in the same league. 

[00:42:21] Zongjun Li: I was pretty surprised this time with all the shaokao in Yiwu. 'Cause last time it was pretty, pretty mid. But this time we got some recommendation of the spot that the locals like to go to. And that was pretty good. 

[00:42:36] Jason Cohen: That was definitely passable. I would say the other big difference is, is that we realized that Lao beer gives us a pounding headache and we stopped drinking it. 

[00:42:44] Pat Penny: Every time it gave me a headache. 

[00:42:46] Jason Cohen: It's pretty awful. So that makes a big difference in your enjoyment level of shaokao and beer. 

[00:42:53] Pat Penny: You've tuned into Shaokao and Beer Technique. Join us next week as we talk about Shaokao and Beer of Shanghai. 

[00:43:01] Jason Cohen: Just to, just to, to bring it back around. We've been radio silent for a little while. Haven't sent out as, as probably as many updates and everything as we should. But coming out now is Pat's trip report, my trip report, of course this conversation which we'll post in its entirety. And then we'll get back to publishing Yixing.

[00:43:24] Jason Cohen: And then for those of you who are in New York I'll host a tasting on Yiwu teas and we'll also do an AMA. 

[00:43:32] Pat Penny: And you've got some other trip reports because you just came back from another trip to China where you said you weren't gonna do much tea stuff and then you did a lot of tea stuff. So tell us about that. 

[00:43:42] Jason Cohen: I did do a lot of tea stuff. I was all over the place. I was in Wuyi, not Yiwu, Wuyi. It's easy to do that in English. I was in Wuyi so I did a bunch of additional work on yancha and surrounding area. I was in Sichuan, about to have some great Sichuan green teas, and meet some people there. I was in, where else was I doing tea stuff? I was in Taipei. 

[00:44:10] Pat Penny: You went to Jingdezhen, didn't you?

[00:44:12] Jason Cohen: I was in Jingdezhen. Jingdezhen was pretty interesting. Very different than Yixing. Totally different scale. Also totally different things going on.

[00:44:21] Pat Penny: While you were in Wuyi, you made a little trip to a, a certain village.

[00:44:26] Jason Cohen: Yep. Yep. The village that shall not be named, but there was quite a bit of interesting and remote areas in the surrounding of Wuyi, some of which are more or less famous than others. But, you know, the Wuyi park was carved out of a specific area, and it truly is a historical park.

[00:44:43] Jason Cohen: But, to the north and particularly to the north west is very pristine forest and mountain areas, growing some excellent teas. And, I'm gonna write a good amount about this very soon but the zhengyan is famous and sought after and desirable for a reason.

[00:45:05] Jason Cohen: But the exact boundaries and borders of the zhengyan were prescribed very late, quite a bit later than people realize. Only post, it was after the 1980s, somewhere in the eighties that the specific borders got turned into a park and everyone and everything was restricted.

[00:45:24] Jason Cohen: But the surrounding areas have been historically growing tea and processing tea in a very similar style for a long time. So, there's a lot to say about that. And then I was in Lushan as well. Another green tea production area. So yeah, it was a lot of travel. 

[00:45:42] Zongjun Li: Very cool. 

[00:45:44] Pat Penny: So basically more to come this next coming months from the Tea Technique team.

[00:45:49] Jason Cohen: More to come.

[00:45:50] Zongjun Li: Yep. Stay tuned. Don't cancel your subscription yet. 

[00:45:55] Jason Cohen: Thank you everyone for joining us in this edition of Tea Technique Editorial Conversations. We're gonna be back onto a normal publication schedule, hopefully before this is even published in live. But as always, thank you all so much.

[00:46:10] Jason Cohen: This is of course a passion project. We all love what we're doing here and we love for you to be with us. And if you're ever around any of the places where we are, whether that's Seattle with Pat, New York with me, doing some gypsy vagabond thing across various cities in China, like Zongjun or in Taipei with Emily send a note to the Instagram, to the email.

[00:46:35] Jason Cohen: All of us would love to have tea with anyone who's reading and listening. So thank you all again. We're gonna get, as I said, I promise we're going to be back. We're gonna finish this Yixing book. We're gonna try to get back to a biweekly schedule, twice a month schedule. Cheers. 

[00:46:50] Zongjun Li: Stay tuned. 

Chapter Discussion Sections:

• 00:00 Introduction 
• 00:48 Defining firing schedule 
• 01:42 Why is the temperature curve of firing important and what is the effect on the ware? 
• 02:22 How to interpret the firing schedule to know if the ware is correctly fired? 
• 04:21 How has firing schedules changed from Ming Dynasty to today? 
• 05:19 Physical differences of antique versus modern Yixing 
• 09:26 How do you know if a teapot is underfired or overfired? 
• 11:25 Can Yixing teapots of different sizes and materials be fired together? 
• 15:20 Are antique Yixing teapots more likely to be overfired or underfired?

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jason Cohen: Hello everyone. I'm Jason Cohen, the author of An Introduction to the Art and Science of Chinese Tea Ceremony. Today we're discussing Book Two, Chapter Ten, Section Two, Mature Firing of Zisha Clay. Here to talk about this chapter is our editorial team, Zongjun Li. 

[00:00:20] Zongjun Li: Hello, hello. 

[00:00:22] Jason Cohen: And Emily Huang.   

[00:00:24] Emily Huang: Hi everyone. 

[00:00:26] Jason Cohen: Wonderful. Kiln technology has developed over thousands of years to regularly produce spectacular ceramic wares matching the preferences and desired utility of their patrons. Some of the key developments of kiln technology are the control of firing schedules, kiln atmosphere, and fuel sources in addition to kiln design. Let's focus on firing schedules for today's discussion.

What is a firing schedule? 

[00:00:51] Zongjun Li: So it's basically, how you control how long does the ware stay in the kiln? And also, the temperature increase trajectory and the cool down trajectory. So by really control these factors, you will be able to reach a different sintering temperature, different sintering temperature length for different clay types that is required to reach either a artistic effect or performance effect of the wares. 

[00:01:21] Jason Cohen: So in summary, it is the time temperature curve of the firing.   

[00:01:25] Zongjun Li: That's right.   

[00:01:27] Jason Cohen: And why is that so important? The rate of rise for the increase of heat, the sustained max temperature throughout the firing. And then the decline. You can do a crash decline to crash cool a kiln, or you can allow it to very slowly cool down.

What effects do those types of things have in general, not in specific?   

[00:01:47] Zongjun Li: In modern days with all these technology, like electric kiln, you can do everything much faster. You can increase the temperature in a very, very sharp rate but stable and sharp rate. 

But traditionally, with dragon kiln and other wood fire kiln, it's much harder to control. So if you really not be able to manage the cool down rate correctly, a lot of things will happen to the wares inside. Like, you might increase the crackage rate. You might have higher deformation rate. All of these needs to be taken into account when calculating the firing schedule. 

[00:02:24] Jason Cohen: And so, why is the max temperature of a kiln alone not enough to know if a ware is underfired or overfired? How do we have to interpret the firing schedule to understand if a ware has been correctly fired? 

[00:02:39] Emily Huang: As Zongjun mentioned, in a traditional dragon kiln or wood fire kilns, it is very hard to control the time temperature curve. And especially when you have multiple different wares located at different spots within the kiln.

So, even when you know the maximum temperature that it may reach to, depending on the clay itself, depending on the shape of the teapot, or even the location that it is put inside the kiln may all have different attributes affecting the end product. 

That is why it's not enough to just know the max temperature. It's also very important to know how quickly the temperature rises and how quickly the temperature cools down. As we want it to fire up smoothly, we also want it to cool down smoothly to avoid any crackages or any further unwanted damages. 

[00:03:39] Jason Cohen: That's exactly right. So you mentioned the rate of rise, the cool down rate, the sustained temperature, the location in the kiln, which is going to change the amount of heat that it's exposed to even when averaging across the kiln. The other two things that I can think of are open saggers versus closed saggers. Those are going to change the amount of heat that enters. 

And so, in summary, the real answer there is that it's all a function of energy. How much energy and how quickly are we putting from the kiln firing into the teapot?

And, Zongjun, you mentioned something interesting about that in dragon kilns had a much slower heat up and cool down. 

So how have firing schedules changed over time from the Ming dynasty to today?

[00:04:27] Zongjun Li: With the blessing of modern technology, we can really reduce the time required to fire wares. It used to be days or even sometimes weeks. Now can be shrinked down into hours. But there are a lot of interesting things happening right there. 

Like, with the really drastic difference in temperature increase and cool down periods. Wares back in Ming dynasty usually have very different texture than wares nowadays. And not to mention the introduction of double firing in the contemporary era. So it's quite easy for experienced collectors to be able to detect a lot of the differences when you're comparing a older Yixing versus a modern Yixing. 

Actually, I have a question for you, Jason. It is thought to be a difference between antique Yixing wares and modern wares because of the difference in firing schedule and kiln usage. 

Can you maybe name a few very noticeable difference if our audience want to compare or have the opportunity to compare? 

[00:05:27] Jason Cohen: Yeah, I certainly agree with that. I've long theorized that one of the main reasons why antique wares perhaps are a better match for tea or in certain instances have a much higher impact on the flavor of tea is because of firing and because of the textural changes that happen to zisha clay when undergoing a longer firing period. 

I've heard many collectors describe the results of zisha wares fired in electric kilns as cold. It's actually the same word that they use when describing oolong tea that's been electric roasted instead of charcoal roasted, they call it cold. It lacks a warmth to it. 

And it's a bit of a difficult thing to describe, but it's more of a sense that you get when handling many of these wares. They don't have the depth of texture. They don't have the depth of effect on you that you expect from wood fired antique wares. So I would say the number one thing that always stands out to me is the depth of the texture, if that makes sense. The texture isn't just a surface level texture, that the longer firing, the slower firing, the slower warm up and cool down, all lead to a more thoroughly baked ware.

Maybe it's the difference between searing a steak and sous viding a steak. The texture is very even throughout and you can really feel that and you can see the differences on the inside as well. But I've long been a proponent of the theory that many of the differences that we see are not just because of clay and processing differences, but also the firing technology. Even though it's modernized, even though it's faster, I'm not convinced that it's been a improvement. 

[00:07:08] Emily Huang: The steak metaphor was very easy to understand, but I have to say I personally won't be able to tell the difference until I cut it open. 

[00:07:18] Zongjun Li: Yep, this Yixing is definitely medium rare. 

Underfired, underfired. 

[00:07:27] Emily Huang: Take it back to the kitchen! 

[00:07:29] Jason Cohen: Speaking of that, people are refiring underfired wares. I've even heard recently of a few collectors that have taken Qing Dynasty antiques that were underfired and weren't such a good match for tea and had them refired. They're, yeah, totally usable. 

[00:07:44] Zongjun Li: Jason, have you ever heard of any wares being double fired before the contemporary era? Is this really a modern innovation?

[00:07:54] Jason Cohen: Well, there's wuhui where wuhui, sometimes purposefully or sometimes accidentally, there were refirings when a ware was so obviously underfired. But frequently, because it was still dragon kiln, that resulted in complete vitrification.

So back at the Institute, we had that one totally vitrified, overfired teapot. That felt and looked like glass. So that was an antique. I think that was ROC antique that had been refired. So it's not unheard of, but it wasn't so much a technique as a Hail Mary. This teapot's no good, this teapot's not usable. Let's see if I put it back in the kiln what happens. 

[00:08:32] Zongjun Li: Right. 

[00:08:32] Jason Cohen: So, not totally unheard of. When F1 developed double firing technique, they were operating off of a long history of Yixing experimentation, but also experimentation in other ceramic forms, because all of the falangcai and wucai, any of the enamel ceramics were double fired at different temperatures. So this idea of doing two full temperature firings was a Yixing innovation, but it wasn't that big of a leap from things that were already being done. 

[00:09:03] Zongjun Li: Not a big leap forward, huh? 

Wrong week to talk about this.

[00:09:11] Jason Cohen: So, on that topic, most practitioners think of Yixing teapots in a continuum of underfired to overfired, with the desired mature firing somewhere in between. And so the question is, what are the most common attributes of those states. 

How do you know if you're dealing with an underfired teapot or overfired teapot? Zongjun, underfired wares can be described as?

[00:09:34] Zongjun Li: The color is usually grayer, it's less vibrant, and the weight is usually significantly lighter. It's more porous, and the surface is usually duller in texture. It's very much like, if any of our audience has touched a Raku ware from Japan. It's a very typical low fired ceramic that when I first touched it, it almost feels like plastic but that's a intentionally low fired ceramic. But in the case of Yixing, low fire is definitely not a desired outcome and frequently in use, it might introduce some earthy notes into the tea which is definitely unwanted.

[00:10:13] Jason Cohen: And Emily, overfired Yixing teapots can be described as?

[00:10:17] Emily Huang: It can be described as glassy, a little bit too smooth in texture, poreless. Yeah, because as we know when the temperature is set to a higher firing temperature, it become more porcelain. Kind of like when you hit on it and the pitch, it's a little bit too high.   

[00:10:39] Jason Cohen: Yeah, too dense. 

[00:10:40] Emily Huang: Too dense. Yeah, all the attributes that you can imagine when you are facing a porcelain pot.   

[00:10:48] Zongjun Li: Pitch are interesting way to detect the firing temperature. 

Just a side note that traditionally there is this instrument in China called bianzhong. It's basically you're firing different ceramic flaps in two different temperature, and when you hit them, it will produce different pitch, and then they put it together, and it's a big, hitting piano that you can play during the imperial court. 

They're, they're magnificent. There are versions made out of bronze. But they're also versions made out of ceramic or a hybrid. 

[00:11:22] Jason Cohen: We discussed the impact of ware placement within the kiln. 

Can Yixing teapots of different sizes and materials be fired together just by placing them in different locations? How big of an impact is this and what does this allow us to understand or to do both with ware firings, ware placement, and our understanding of kiln design and kiln technology? 

[00:11:43] Zongjun Li: Traditionally, it has been harder because with dragon kiln, it's harder to control the proportion of the flame temperature in different locations very accurately. So the general practice will be putting wares with a high fire requirement closer to the mouth of the kiln, and then you put lower temperature wares closer to the chimney. 

In modern days, you have so many different variations of different kilns. Electric kilns, it's basically very uniformic in all aspect inside the kiln. But, with downdraft kiln or with push back kiln, the general practice will be maybe try to put wares with higher temperature requirement on top of the kiln and then you put the low temperature required wares in the bottom. 

It's basically follow the color of the flame. Higher temperature is on top of the flame and lower temperature is in the bottom of the flame. 

[00:12:37] Jason Cohen: Perhaps one confusing thing about the pushback kiln is that the fire comes from the top, so both heat rises and also the flame ports, the oil ports putting the heat into the kiln, are aligned along the top of the kiln. So the top is hotter for two reasons. Because in most kilns, you push in the fuel and it burns from the bottom up. And so you get a different type of heat flux, a different type of thermal flow. But the heat's pretty concentrated in a pushback kiln. 

[00:13:12] Zongjun Li: Is it also the same case for downdraft kiln since the flame is coming from the top, basically? 

[00:13:18] Jason Cohen: Well, so downdraft kilns, because they have a chimney, it has a thermal flow.

So the firing is forced to enter from the top and it must flow down and out to the chimney. That creates a vacuum action that continuously pulls heat and oxygen into the kiln. And so usually what happens is that there is one or two eddies, heat vortex eddies, right where the heat being pushed into the top of the kiln where it has to go up before it goes down, creates a chaotic vortex.

And so most of the time in pushback kilns, what you'll actually see is a pyramid stack of wares. But it's only slanted on one side, so it's like a right angle triangle. And that right angle triangle is angled away from that first open heat port, because that's where the heat eddy is. 

And anywhere that was there would either be way overfired, or yaobianed, or even saggers would have difficulty in that instance, because it's a lot of energy, heat energy and air movement that would be trying to enter that position. 

[00:14:30] Zongjun Li: Interesting. It's almost just like a bented dragon kiln. 

[00:14:33] Jason Cohen: Yeah, yeah, like a bent dragon kiln. Exactly. It is possible to fire different wares, different materials in the same kiln. Less so done in small kilns, like electric kilns, not really done in electric kilns. Less so done in more heat even kilns like a downdraft kiln. But on a dragon kiln, they would place it either closer to the chimney or closer to the firebox for wares higher temperatures, towards the middle for wares lower temperatures and that worked as well as anything in the Ming and Qing worked for firing ceramics, and in contemporary period in a pushback kiln even through F1, they were able to fire higher sintering temperature wares on top and lower sintering temperature wares on bottom. 

My last question. 

Are antique Yixing teapots from the ROC and earlier, are they more likely to be overfired or underfired?

[00:15:28] Zongjun Li: So historically, ceramists, they tend to target the lower limits of the sintering temperature back in the days, because the control of firing temperature at the time was not as good as today. So it's more likely for wares at the time to be underfired. And nowadays when you have extreme control in a electric kiln people tend to target a more accurate sintering temperature whenever they wish it to be. So it's quite interesting to see the difference. And also, one thing that is interesting is the introduction of double firing in the contemporary time when sometimes either the finished fire would be a wood fire for cosmetic reason, or it might be electrified to reach a very accurate sintering temperature at the end.

And one thing that you can achieve with that is a technique called zhengkou (整口). So basically you can have a very tightly sealed cap with the teapot with high control of firing temperature. So in the first firing they would really struggle to pull the teapot with the cap out and then give it a finished polish. And then put it back and then do a second firing so that it will be a very tight seal. Whereas traditionally because ceramist can only hit a rough temperature range to finish the firing, the seal of the cap and the teapot might not be as good. 

[00:16:57] Jason Cohen: Well everyone, that's all the time that we have for today Thank you for joining us in this edition of Tea Technique Editorial Conversations. Please join us again for our next conversation, Dragon Kilns. 

Chapter Discussion Sections:

• 00:00 Introduction
• 00:27 What is a firing schedule?
• 01:24 What is a kiln site and why are their development important to know?
• 02:02 Why were kilns all mostly built in one area?
• 03:39 Is repairing a kiln akin to a ship of Theseus issue?
• 05:28 What is a saggar?
• 06:30 How did kiln technology spread throughout China and what was the government’s role in the spread?
• 13:06 What's the impact of other kiln sites on Yixing kilns?
• 14:17 Guarded kiln technology
• 16:39 Why use a linear developmental approach to explaining kiln technology?
• 17:57 What changed in 1600s that result in private kilns?
• 21:41 Do private kilns have an advantage in domestic or export market?
• 22:56 Quality of private kilns versus imperial kilns

Transcript

[00:00:05] Jason Cohen: Hello everyone, I'm Jason Cohen, the author of An Introduction to the Art and Science of Chinese Tea Ceremony. Today we're discussing Book 2, Chapter 10, Section 1, Firing of Yixing Teapots, An Overview of Yixing Kilns. Here to talk about this chapter is our editorial team, Patrick Penny. 

[00:00:21] Pat Penny: Hey, hey! 

[00:00:22] Jason Cohen: Zongjun Li. 

[00:00:23] Zongjun Li: Hello.

[00:00:24] Jason Cohen: And Emily Huang. 

[00:00:25] Emily Huang: Da jia hao. 

[00:00:27] Jason Cohen: Let's start with a quick round of definitions. What is a firing schedule?

[00:00:33] Pat Penny: So firing schedule is the planned time and temperature range that is going to occur within the kiln. So how long it's going to take for the kiln to get up to temperature, how long it's going to stay at a designated temperature, and then how long it's going to ramp down in temperature until it reaches ultimately a cooling phase. 

[00:00:50] Jason Cohen: And that differs by different types of kilns, different types of ceramics. 

[00:00:54] Pat Penny: Not only different types of kilns, but the target temperature is going to depend, like we see in Yixing here, on what ore predominantly your pot is firing. So there's different ranges that you want to hit depending on predominantly what ore is going to be in the kiln, or your kiln might hit a certain temperature, but you might stack your teapots in different arrangement depending on what temperature you want a certain strata to hit. 

So the firing schedule is one thing, but there's even more technique that goes into it, which we'll discuss further. 

[00:01:23] Jason Cohen: So it gets quite specific. 

Zongjun, what is a kiln site and why are they an important concept when studying the development of kiln technology?

[00:01:31] Zongjun Li: Kiln changes all the time, like kiln types and kiln technology.

But the location of these kilns usually do not change a lot throughout history. So you can have Jian Yao (建窑). You can have Longquan Yao (龙泉窑). You can have Jingdezhen (景德镇). You can have Yixing (宜兴). All exist throughout hundreds of years of history in a similar location. So you are trying to study a heritage of how firing technology, ceramic technology exists and developed and evolved over time. 

[00:02:04] Jason Cohen: Is there a reason why these kilns were consistently built in one area? Is there a geographic reason or a cultural reason? Or was it just easier once a kiln was built to keep building it there?

[00:02:15] Zongjun Li: Yeah. And also, kiln has a lifespan. You use the kiln. You fire the kiln. And over time, there can be a natural hazard. There can be war. Kiln collapse, and you need to rebuild them.

And once you have a site that's ongoing, you have groups of people, you have this ecosystem exist in the local community to support such industry. It's just easier for the kiln complex to exist in a similar location.

[00:02:44] Pat Penny: I'm just picking up a thread on that question too. I think a lot of these kiln sites were geographically defined by what materials that they had available to them or nearby to them. So when we think about Jingdezhen or primarily porcelain firing areas, there's probably a high amount of kaolin that was available in that area, which helped define that region as a kiln site. So I think that's definitely a part of it. Maybe there's a cultural piece to it as well, but probably the material was there and that helped then the culture rise around it. 

[00:03:14] Zongjun Li: And also over time, the name of these locations become almost a brand, a label of a ware. Like Jingdezhen, like Longquan, like Yixing zisha, people will associate certain types of ceramic with a geographic location. 

[00:03:30] Jason Cohen: Those are great points. Zongjun, picking up on something else that you said about these kilns. They get destroyed. There's natural hazards. You fire in them repeatedly and then they break down. 

Is this a Ship of Theseus issue? Because Pat and I, when we were in South Korea, the kiln that we were firing our wares in was, I believe, 1600s. Jesuits built 1600s kilns. 

But on the other hand, one of the times that we had visited, he had said that there had been some heavy rain and part of the kiln collapsed. And yet he just went back and with the same bricks, repaired it. Is that the same Kiln? Is that what it means as a kiln site?

Or are we talking about totally destroying a kiln and rebuilding something new on top of it, with new technology? 

[00:04:09] Zongjun Li: I don't know. This is almost a question of Theseus' ship. If you keep manning a ship till the end, if it's still the same ship, I don't know. You can argue that it's the same ship. You can argue that it's a different ship. 

[00:04:22] Jason Cohen: Unfortunately I mixed questions there.

I did both ask, is it the same kiln? But I also asked, is that always the case? So we're talking about repairs or are they actually destroying a kiln to replace it with something new from time to time?   

[00:04:36] Zongjun Li: Yeah, I've visited a dragon kiln in Shunde. It's a kiln that was first built back in Ming Dynasty, and throughout times I believe the kiln has been rebuilt for at least three times? 

So they do fixings to the kiln when it partially collapsed or sometimes it gets misfired and certain portion of the kiln gets overheated and then they need to mend it. But sometimes, in order to facilitate larger production, sometimes they need to reconstruct the firing chamber to extend the length of the kiln which requires basically a rebuild. 

So I think such rebuild happened many times in different kilns throughout history for either increase the capacity or change certain feature of the kiln or sometimes firing a type of kiln to a different one might require a rebuild too. 

[00:05:28] Jason Cohen: Emily, what is a saggar? 

[00:05:31] Emily Huang: So a saggar, you can think of it as like a box where the artists would often put their partially done teapots or wares in the box and then put the entire box into the kiln to fire. And this is because they want to prevent any, could be dust or ash or any cracking that occurs in the kiln and scratching the surface or damaging the tea wares and teapots.

Yeah, it is often used to put in batches of saggars in a kiln. 

[00:06:06] Jason Cohen: And not just dust or ash, but also that ash falling onto the ware and turning into glaze, getting a natural ash glaze.   

[00:06:14] Emily Huang: Whether intentional or unintentional, most of the time we don't want that, hence the use of saggar. 

[00:06:21] Jason Cohen: Why don't these boxes burn? What are they made out of? 

[00:06:25] Emily Huang: They are made out of ceramics. 

[00:06:28] Jason Cohen: They're fireproof clay boxes. 

Moving away from definitions and into the discussion, how did kiln technology spread throughout China, and what role did the imperial government have in aiding this spread?

[00:06:39] Emily Huang: There has been a long tradition where not only just teawares, but even like calligraphies or poets where these artistic products would be sent into the Imperial Palace for the Emperor to, as a collection, to admire.

And this tradition produces a official kiln where for example, the one in Jingdezhen, it was an official kiln and they would commission and fire products that would be going into the Imperial Palace. They would also fire products for normal wares and for daily drinking and for collection. But the Imperial Palace helped with not only the reputation of the kiln, but also allowing it to having more opportunity to be improved, renovated, or expanded, etc. 

And because different kilns are often located at different ore sites and with different clays, etc, there could be many, quote unquote, official kilns throughout China And so that tradition of sending it into the palace helped with the improvement of and development of the kiln and also of the entire industry. 

[00:08:02] Pat Penny: Build off it a little bit. Certainly the imperial household not only commissioned wares, but were patrons for various arts, ceramic and otherwise. The literati do quite a similar function, maybe at a smaller scale individually, but as a whole, I think it's worth debate whether or not they had a larger impact on ceramic development versus the imperial family or not. That might be an interesting discussion to have at some point. 

But outside of the space of commissions and patrons of art, going back probably quite far into the history of China, pre China as a country, but to the development of ceramic arts, a lot of these arts were just local forms of expression where you had tribes at the time who had materials on hand that they used either to form wares that were ceremonial in nature or eventually wares that were for daily use. And over time as these cultures come into contact with each other, trade probably took place and I think that's where a lot of the development of ceramics throughout Chinese history came from.

So you're having different groups who have different ores available to them, different firing technology, and different wares they focus on, and that is getting traded across China, by and large in part, probably pushed by imperial households or those who are rich and wealthy. 

But I think it's really the trade that probably helped to foster development throughout China's history for ceramics. 

[00:09:21] Zongjun Li: Yeah, the court really acts as a chief commissioner for all of the wares throughout China and also act as a aesthetic leader throughout time. So you can have a lot of these different aesthetic appreciation towards different types of ceramics in different dynasties, even different emperors within the dynasty. You can see the variations. 

So usually we talk about the five most famous kiln in China. Ge Du Guan Ding Jun (哥汝官定钧 ). Guan is of course the official kiln, but they all have different specialties like the kiln change yao bian (窑变) in Jun Yao (钧窑). You can have the celadon in Ru Yao (汝窑). Those are all very interesting and very characteristic ceramics that gets appreciated in different eras of time. 

And in those eras, you usually have the emperor or the court as the fashion leader to decide what is the imperial appreciation. What is our national ceramics?

So you can have for example, in Ming, there is a very heavy appreciation towards qinghua (清花) but into Qing dynasty, falangcai (珐琅彩) the very gaudy, colorful shape ceramic becomes the trend. So the court really acts as the key opinion leader at the time for ceramics.

[00:10:38] Jason Cohen: Falangcai has grown on me over time. I used to see it and think, oh, way too gaudy, but over time fen cai (粉彩), the rose famille verte has grown on me a bit. 

[00:10:48] Zongjun Li: The pattern just reminds me too much of my grandma's pillow, you know. 

[00:10:53] Jason Cohen: It's the opposite, it's the opposite. Your grandma's pillow is based on these beautiful motifs from earlier.

What were you saying, Pat? 

[00:11:02] Pat Penny: I was just saying you've just become more gaudy over time. That's all there is to it. 

[00:11:05] Jason Cohen: I have. There's even that footnote in book one. Someone will search for it, you'll find it. 

One of the things that's worth talking about with the effect of the imperial family for the spread of technology, is that there were maybe two routes for primary spread.

There was, of course, the applied culture and learned technique of the craftsmen and kiln masters in each of these areas. They were often, at the villager level, illiterate. And then you have the mandarins working within the court system running the commissions and the imperial kilns for the empire, for the emperor.

And there were two methods of information spread between these different groups. There was the illiterate word of mouth, applied technique, applied knowledge, only some of which made it into either the gazetteers or made it into the manuscripts written by the literati, to promote their own expertise on these topics and to hopefully get a posting to run one of these major kiln sites or to become a negotiator or eventually later to become a respected collector whose wares and motifs and preferences would be encoded into the literati culture.

And so when we think about what did the Empire do to spread this technology? There were two things. One is they actually moved some of these illiterate kiln masters and artisans and craftsmen around. They would bring them to the Imperial Palace Workshop or to the Imperial Kiln from both within the province and from outside of the province, particularly Southern craftsmen going north into the imperial kilns or into the imperial palace workshop that would spread knowledge. And then they would purposely send them back, hoping to establish, particularly in the Qing dynasty, an imperial ideal of what these ceramics should be and that spread this applied knowledge at the same time that the literati were writing these other things.

So there was two sets of information exchanges, not all of which overlapped.

And that leads to an interesting question on how much of an impact other kiln sites had on the kilns of Yixing? Do we think of Jingdezhen having a major impact? Do we think of other kilns having a major impact? Can you name a kiln that had a major impact?

[00:13:22] Zongjun Li: Jun Yao (钧窑) certainly had a major impact to Yixing. You can find what they call Yijun (宜钧) nowadays. It's a very interesting imitation of Jun Yao aesthetic with Yixing material. Not necessarily have the same performance as regular Yixing zisha but certainly beautiful to look at. 

[00:13:41] Pat Penny: Probably inspired by falangcai ( 珐琅彩), maybe some qinghua (清花) , we see overglazed enamel painted Yixing which certainly play off the motifs that we see from many other kilns.   

[00:13:52] Jason Cohen: That was specifically started by the Imperial Palace Workshop. That's a great example.

What about Shiwan (石灣)? Shiwan at one point was a leading competitor to Yixing. Do we see any influence from Shiwan techniques? 

Northern Guangdong kiln.

[00:14:09] Pat Penny: I remember reading about it in a previous chapter, but I'm not able to tie the two together.

[00:14:14] Jason Cohen: The short answer is yes.

What are some of the examples of unique kiln technology that may have been guarded by these independent businesses? Outside of the imperial kiln, you have the supplied knowledge, these kiln masters, what secrets are they keeping? What are they not telling the literati who are coming there to interview them and then write all about their techniques into manuscripts? 

[00:14:35] Pat Penny: What are you not telling us? You just skipped right over the Shiwan with a yes. We want to hear it too. 

[00:14:40] Jason Cohen: Someone's got to look this up. This is going to be a perfect comment for you on this chapter, Pat. 

[00:14:45] Pat Penny: All right, I got a deep dive to do.   

[00:14:47] Zongjun Li: Oh, the Shiwan looks like a Jun Yao too.

[00:14:51] Jason Cohen: Emily, that question to you. What are some examples of unique kiln technology, 

[00:14:56] Pat Penny: heavily guarded technology question? 

[00:14:58] Jason Cohen: Yes. What secrets are they keeping?

[00:15:01] Emily Huang: Secrets are called secrets because other people don't know about it.

[00:15:06] Pat Penny: I think this question has a secret answer, but if I had to guess, I would think probably glaze technology. So the mix of different colors, or the components that would go into a glaze, or at what temperature that glaze would vitrify. I'm sure things like that would be kept secret in certain areas.

The base clay material probably wouldn't be largely discussed with outsiders. It would be more expensive, but I'm sure that if you wanted to start a kiln to compete with another kiln, you could, if you in theory knew what the material composition was, import the organic material. I would think that probably the blend of material would be guarded. 

I'm sure there's infrastructure technology right around the kiln itself, which there's some things you can see with the eye, but I'm sure that there's some specific design techniques that probably were not broadly shared beyond maybe what certain literati were writing or discussing. I imagine there was things they were probably told, hush, don't write too much about this.   

[00:16:02] Jason Cohen: Yeah, that's a pretty good answer. So on the first one, glaze composition. Absolutely, that was often kept secret. On the second one, clay composition, that was much more difficult to keep secret because there was big mines and excavations going on. 

And in fact, we did see someone start a competing kiln site for Yixing in the ROC, shipping tons of Yixing materials, tons of Yixing ore and processed clay to Shanghai for firing during the ROC in many of the export wares. So that actually did happen. 

But the other one that was frequently kept secret is the firing schedule. Being able to determine the heat and the atmosphere in the kiln was a highly guarded secret. 

Moving on, in this chapter, I argue for and use a linear developmental approach to the kiln technology for Yixing wares. Is this defensible? Why isn't a topological approach with sections on kiln design, fuel, atmosphere, and history a better structure for this chapter? 

What do we gain by looking at this developmentally?  

[00:17:00] Pat Penny: At least the way that I look at it, all of the newer innovations that come over time as the technology is developing build off of the initial technology. To go from modern and then go backwards or to take it section at a time, one section by section, you lose how a lot of these techniques build upon each other and the natural discovery that would have happened, leading to the progression of this technology over time. It's really a matter of one thing leading into the next, and so I think that linear progression makes sense.   

[00:17:30] Zongjun Li: Yeah, and this progression really is a universal pattern in different kiln sites. A lot of these kiln locations undergo similar evolution throughout history. If you look at a lot of the natural development in different sites like Jingdezhen or Yixing, they all went through similar pattern of building, rebuilding, moving into modernization, and all the difficulties they are facing in modern era. 

[00:17:59] Jason Cohen: What changed in the early 1600s in Imperial China that allowed for the founding of private kilns or the transition of some village kilns into private kilns?   

[00:18:08] Pat Penny: There's economic reforms. So the Chinese economy, I think, started to move into more, I'm assuming, paper money. Although I could be wrong. Maybe it's coins. 

[00:18:17] Jason Cohen: It was coinage. 

[00:18:18] Pat Penny: Okay. 

[00:18:20] Jason Cohen: And so what spurred that change? Early 1600s, Zongjun, why did China suddenly move from a barter system to a coin system? 

Coins and paper money had existed previously before this. Why did it suddenly increase? Why did rural villagers go from predominantly bartering to a predominantly market economy?

[00:18:40] Zongjun Li: You see the paper system being developed and actually went to a perfection during Ming dynasty because you see the early signs of what they call the yin piao and yin hao. They're almost proto banks in China and spark of capitalism revolution, but got extinguished very sadly because the fall of the Ming empire.

So in the late 1600, we were seeing constant wars going on, civil war and also invasion from the North into the Middle Earth. And in such a turmoil era, the paper system will no longer sustain, you no longer have a stable government to endorse such system to exchange a certain amount of gold or silver with the paper in your hand. So people started to move into a coin system or other precious material system as the base of economy. 

[00:19:35] Jason Cohen: This is all true for the merchant class. But what was going on with the farmers, the villagers? What was going on with the individuals who weren't merchants or mandarins, who didn't even have access to this type banking system? 

The major reform in the Ming was that taxation moved from being payable in goods in kind to being payable in money, and all labor on behalf of the imperial government was now paid in coins. And so this injected massive amounts of coinage into China and gave coins to individuals who had previously had never been able to barter for them and had no reason to have them. 

This demand was so great that it actually is part of what spread the Chinese empire only slightly legally into Southeast Asia with mines in Southeast Asia, Bhutan and elsewhere and also importing silver from South America, kick starting trade with Europe and partially opening up China to that trade.

And suddenly this availability of coinage spurs an entire new generation of individuals to begin producing goods for a new market economy, some of which was extinguished exactly as you said, some of which survived through the Ming and the ROC. But that early monetization is really what spurred privatization and the original idea that you can convert things that had been community property, village property, into private property, or construct things that competed with village property. 

[00:21:03] Zongjun Li: A side anecdote from the overabundance of coin at the time, there were contemporary excavation of armor in North America that the local Indians or Native Americans were using Ming Dynasty coins to weave them together to build these armor for the warriors to wear.

That was quite amazing to see. 

[00:21:24] Pat Penny: I've never heard that. That's pretty mind blowing. 

[00:21:27] Jason Cohen: I hope that's the cover image for this episode. 

Given that explanation, how did those exports then play a role? What were private kilns doing? They were producing for the domestic market, they were producing for the export market.

Did private kilns have an advantage in either of those spheres?   

[00:21:45] Pat Penny: I would think private kilns would have an advantage for the export market. The reason I think that is your officially commissioned kilns from the imperial family, they're providing very specific things that they want and assumably in pretty high quantities. So I would think the official kilns probably have their hands decently full. And I would think the pay from the official kiln would be sustainable enough that they're not maybe going out and hunting for extra business. 

Whereas these private kilns, it's probably easier for foreign entities to come in and commission with them. They don't have to compete with the imperial family or other high rank literati that might want wares from these official kilns. And I'm sure that the source of silver and other coinage for making export produced wares is probably pretty high.

So I think when we think about a lot of the wares that we've seen in museums that were export pieces. You do have many that are quite high quality and certainly came from official kilns but I've seen in a lot of museums in Southeast Asia, excellent collections that were obviously from private kilns, didn't bear a lot of the markings of some of these official kilns or the style. So I would think the private kilns thrived probably on the export market.

[00:22:55] Jason Cohen: That is all correct. 

Given that, how did the quality of the private kilns compare to the quality of the imperial kilns?

[00:23:02] Pat Penny: It probably depends on which kiln you pick. I'm sure there's a range of quality, and we've all seen when we've gone to museums, a range of quality. There's pieces that are in those museums because they are museum grade pieces, and there's pieces that are there for educational purposes to show a variety of styles and contemporary availability of certain pieces. 

It probably depends on who it was being exported for. So there's export pieces that are for royalty abroad of similar stature to the imperial family. And then there's also export pieces to it that are probably more for the merchant class or for the kind of everyday person working class and so I'm sure that the availability of exports from different private kilns reflects the different classes who this was being exported to. 

[00:23:46] Zongjun Li: Yeah, even in some of the more famous private kiln clusters like Longquan, you can still see a very large variation of different qualities. You can have very top quality celadon and other types of ceramic, but still you can have this mass production kilns making daily usage wares for civilians. So the quality really varies depending on even which corner of the city you're visiting. 

[00:24:11] Pat Penny: I think probably all of us own a cup that was a people's ware cup, right? And even between those cups, there's varying levels of quality.

[00:24:21] Jason Cohen: But don't all of us also own a Kangxi (康熙) imperial ware that vary in quality? 

You can't see, but everyone is shaking their head no. 

[00:24:30] Pat Penny: Everyone who signs up for Tea Technique, don't you send them a Kangxi commission piece? 

[00:24:35] Jason Cohen: They get one Kangxi, that would be expensive, we'll send them a Guangxu (光緒). 

So, I agree with everything that has been said. One of the other interesting points that I'll add to that is that the quality of the imperial kilns varied over time, both with the level of supply and what else was happening, what the government was spending money on. So there were in fact times where the official kilns, which were not imperial kilns or the private kilns, exceeded the quality of the imperial kilns. So much to the point that at various times the imperial kiln was shut down before being restarted at a later date.   

Well, everyone, that's all the time that we have for today. Thank you for joining us in this edition of Tea Technique Editorial Conversations. Please join us again for our next conversation, Mature Firing of Zisha Clay. 

Chapter Discussion Sections: 

• 00:00 Introduction and Theme Song
• 03:07 What is everyone drinking?
• 05:11 One horse-sized duck versus 100 duck-sized horses?
• 06:56 Historical and current endemic brewing practices of Yunnan
• 10:18 Trip Expectations
• 13:17 What surprised ZJ on his first visit to Yunnan 2 years ago?
• 17:33 What surprised ZJ in regards to Yunnan’s diversity?
• 18:42 Jason’s Trip Expectations
• 22:25 Why choose Yiwu versus elsewhere in Yunnan?
• 24:21 What would it look like to go to a different area other than Yiwu?
• 26:16 Main goals for the trip and how the trips add to research for the book
• 31:27 What makes you nervous about the trip?
• 36:18 Misconceptions about Yunnan pu'er
• 39:18 Do we gravitate to Yiwu as a tea drinker?
• 42:09 Preparations for the trip
• 48:25 Reading/Watching in transit to Yunnan
• 50:29 How will this trip benefit Jason and the readers/listeners of Tea Technique?

A full transcript is included on the episode page and below:

[00:00:05] Jason Cohen: All right. We are gonna start off with our new tradition. 

[00:00:10] Pat Penny: I'm so, so worried about this. 

[00:00:13] Jason Cohen: Aren't you always worried about this? Just as 

[00:00:15] Pat Penny: I am. 

[00:00:16] Jason Cohen: people come in, 

[00:00:18] Pat Penny: I have a feeling I know what's gonna happen. 

[00:00:21] Jason Cohen: That's right. Okay.

Let's see.

This is a good one. (AI Music Playing)   

Alright. 

[00:02:33] Pat Penny: So that's our new tradition. I think, what this is the third or fourth AMA where you've had some music for us to open up? 

[00:02:39] Jason Cohen: I have. And with that, we can start. We're so excited that people have joined us, and we're so excited for all the questions that we got. And most of all, I think we're excited for this trip. It's less than a week away now. 

[00:02:52] Pat Penny: Yeah, I think Zongjun, before you had joined, before we started, I was just telling Jason, I went out and got all my vaccines updated, did all my shopping. I'm at the point where I'm just like, just put me in the airplane. I just want to go, let's get to Yunnan. 

[00:03:05] Zongjun Li: Ooh, let's go.

[00:03:07] Pat Penny: In the tradition of our AMAs, we always ask what everyone's drinking to start. And Jason I already see, you took a big swig. So you wanna let us know what you're drinking?   

[00:03:15] Jason Cohen: I am drinking a really nice Hui Yuan Keng Qi Dan. There's a little bit of sparkle to it. So it doesn't make an age claim, so I'm gonna guess that it's not quite Wuyi gushu. So maybe, 20, 30-year-old tree. It's very good, very caramelly, leaves are like a bit of clove oil essence on your tongue. And I thought, what better to pair that with at 9:00 PM on a Wednesday than some Glenfarclas Japanese export, 21 year cast strength. 

[00:03:47] Pat Penny: Casual, very casual. 

That a Hui Yuan Keng Qi Dan, is that from our friend whose bar we all went to or is this a different source? 

[00:03:55] Jason Cohen: Yes. Testing out a range of our new friend's teas.   

[00:03:59] Pat Penny: Nice. Okay. Excited to hear more. Zongjun, you have something at hand that you're drinking tonight?   

[00:04:05] Zongjun Li: There's a big bottle of Nong Fu Shan.

[00:04:08] Pat Penny: Just enjoying the taste of Nong Fu Shan which we'll be drinking nonstop in the next few weeks. 

[00:04:13] Jason Cohen: Was that just the 9:00 AM special Zongjun, or did 

[00:04:16] Zongjun Li: No alcohol, nothing. Just priming my palate to absolute neutral. Ready for this trip. 

[00:04:25] Pat Penny: Nothing else will go in your body. 

[00:04:27] Zongjun Li: Yep. Just shui. 

[00:04:29] Pat Penny: It's a little fast Zongjun, we're not gonna be there for another week.

Okay. Well, I have a little mug here of some chen pi (dried tangerine peel) and some shou pu'er because as I mentioned, I got my vaccines updated a little bit earlier today. Just feel like I got my butt kicked a little bit by them. So, I needed something to comfort me and hold me tight and let me know everything's gonna be okay after all of my shots.

I think with that we're gonna jump into the questions that were pre-submitted. Just let everyone know who's joining online as well, feel free to drop questions in the chat and we'll answer them live. 

So we did get a question from a friend of the podcast and I'm gonna read it now. Jason, I think this one is specifically to you. This comes from our friend Anthony C. 

Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or 100 duck- sized horses?

[00:05:16] Jason Cohen: One horse-sized duck. I think the hundred could come at me from multiple angles. But having just a single opponent, I think I stand a better chance.

[00:05:26] Pat Penny: Mallards are pretty vicious. I don't know, a mallard the size of a horse. I'm kind of scared of that. Zongjun, do you have a different take. 

[00:05:33] Zongjun Li: Kind of a Yunnan mushroom fevered dreamer.

[00:05:36] Pat Penny: This is a very serious question submitted by a listener. 

[00:05:39] Zongjun Li:I'll take whatever is coming to us for ge men. Anything. 

[00:05:42] Jason Cohen: Zongjun thinks as a team. 

Earth, wind, water, fire. We can take the hundred ducks. 

[00:05:49] Pat Penny: Alright, we're missing Emily. So, one of the elements is down, so I'm not sure that we're gonna be able to like, power up, Captain Planet this and take out the ducks.

[00:05:57] Jason Cohen: I will say I was shocked by how big a goose was. I was walking around some market in Taiwan and there was a goose, full-size goose at a cage. Goose was like as tall as I was. That goose was huge. 

[00:06:10] Pat Penny: That's like gushu goose. 

[00:06:11] Jason Cohen: That stopped me in my tracks. I had to do a double take. And then of course, the nice gentleman with the goose stall was just like, e a!, like I needed an explanation of what this goose was.

[00:06:22] Pat Penny: I don't know. Foreigners have never seen a goose before. A special Taiwanese goose. They don't have this in other places. 

[00:06:28] Jason Cohen: I've never seen a goose that big before. That was a really big goose. 

[00:06:32] Pat Penny: Almost horse size, would you say? 

[00:06:35] Jason Cohen: I don't think I could've fought it. I think I didn't, I would've lost. 

[00:06:38] Pat Penny: Well, it sounds like you picked a losing battle then.

I do think I'm on the same team as you though. I think I go for the one giant duck. 

[00:06:44] Jason Cohen: I just wanna be clear. The horse size duck picked a fight with me. 

[00:06:48] Pat Penny: I mean this, Anthony asking this question is picking a fight with all of us. He did submit that question. That was a real question that we got. 

So another question submitted by a reader. This is actually a two-parter. So the question was, what are the endemic brewing practices of Yunnan? They had a follow-up question. What are the historic brewing practices of Yunnan? So these may be the same thing, or maybe there's a slightly different answer. 

[00:07:10] Jason Cohen: I would say the endemic brewing practices and the historic brewing practices are both best described as splashy fun time. There's a lot of big plate brewing. There's a lot of tree stump tea table brewing. That said the brewing is quite skillful.

It might be splashy fun time, and it might not be particularly overbearingly elegant as you would see in, at tea houses in Shanghai or Taipei, but they're using medium sized updose in tea to water ratio, anywhere 5, 6, 7 grams of tea. And packing that into 120 mil, 150 mil gaiwan and doing relatively rapid brews.

One thing that we do see a lot of is mixed dao bei brewing, where they're not particularly concerned with adding multiple brews into the same gong dao bei. And that's a very tea taster farmer merchant thing that you'll see in Yunnan. The idea is that good tea, the tea, the flavor profile will be pretty stable across those multiple brews. And they're doing a little bit higher of an updose, a little bit longer of a standard brew time than you see in more type of refined multi-brew sessions. 

But the important thing to know is that before 19, late nineties, really, before late nineties it would've been all lao ren cha. It would've been Thermos brewing, large cup brewing. And it wasn't until the Taiwanese came back to Yunnan in the nineties that they began to brew in a way that was more presentable for individuals actually visiting. I don't know if you wanna expound on that or talk more about that Zongjun. 

[00:08:48] Zongjun Li: Yeah. And just to expand from the points that Jason made. They didn't drink pu'er. They were historically been drinking green tea and sometimes red tea. All of the pu'er teas that they made historically being exported to other provinces, end up staying in those provinces and they never drank their own produce.

Until very recently, of course. 

[00:09:09] Jason Cohen: Until very recently. And rare productions, occasional productions of things like dian hongs, certain red teas, white teas. But really, when they say white tea in Yunnan, they mean like unprocessed sun dried maocha. Very low intervention type production. So, this idea of individuals drinking pu'er tea in Yunnan, it was predominantly an export product. 

And we should also make a strong differentiation between the indigenous ethnicities of Yunnan versus the historical Han migration. There's been Han for 3, 400 plus years at this point. But the practices of the Han were much more sinified than some of the Bai and Dai various minority groups that continue to have their own practice of boiled tea. And other types of tea that they make.   

[00:09:58] Pat Penny: Awesome. Okay, I think we answered that one. Great question. Thank you to our reader. And hopefully they feel like you answered it. I think you did a nice job. 

[00:10:05] Jason Cohen: Well, Pat, before you jump into that next question, maybe you should give a little bit of background. 'Cause all three of us have different levels of experience in Yunnan. 

[00:10:12] Pat Penny: Yeah. Well, I think that's probably gonna be touched upon in some of our other questions here. We do have a couple questions that kind of touch on the same theme. So a lot of the themes are around like, for you and Zongjun, you've both been to Yunnan before.

So there's this theme in the questions of what are your expectations? So what are you guys expecting to see that maybe you've already seen before. What do you think is gonna be different about this trip? And then I'll add my own color here. I've never been to Yunnan before.

I've only heard about it secondhand, seen pictures, seen videos, and so for me, my expectations are set like super high. I think it's good that we had Wuyi last year to to like, I don't know, temper me a little bit. Because if we like exceeded Chaozhou and then I was just like continuing this upward trajectory of amazing tea trips, I don't know if I could like actually fathom what Yunnan was gonna be like because my excitement would be way too high. 

So I think I got tempered by last year's experience a little bit. Still a good time, but it was more type two fun. I think this year will be a little bit more type one fun and type two fun. But you know, it's expecting that we're gonna spend a lot of time with farmers. Of course expecting we're gonna drink a ton of tea.

I do think that my preconceived notions of some of the flavor profiles particularly in this area 'cause we're gonna be pretty heavily in Yiwu and in some small, I'm thinking we're gonna be going to some small villages and small mountain areas. I think a lot of what I believe this tea tastes like is gonna be challenged and I hope it is.

And then I'll be excited to see where maybe my previous knowledge holds true. I do think this trip is gonna be more difficult than the previous trips that we've had. Yunnan just feels like a little more back country. I was just telling Jason before we started recording how much shopping I've been doing, and Jason gets a text from me every three or four days when I'm like thinking about going to REI and I'm like, Hey, do we have clean drinking water in Yunnan? Hey do I need bug spray? 

I think, expectations are high. Slowly getting myself mentally and physically prepared for the trip. I think whatever I expect I hope that this trip will exceed it. So I'll pass it back to you and Zongjun, Jason with your part two or part three or part four Yunnan experience.

[00:12:18] Jason Cohen: Well, I'll let Zongjun go first, but I will say I wish they had snake spray. 

[00:12:22] Pat Penny: Oh, great. Great. Cool.   

[00:12:25] Zongjun Li: It's going back to Yunnan again, Jason. I don't know. This time is going to be very different from Wuyi. I would say it would be probably more similar to Chaozhou because we're going back closer to the tea harvest and tea processing season.

So expecting the whole mountain smelled like tea and really wanted to see those people carrying giant basket of fresh tea leaves, walking along the mountain routes into the villages. That was quite a scene from a lot of the national photography competitions. And really wanted to see that because Yiwu was famous historically for being a tea trading center in the region.

Dunno if that's still a practice, but I would be very happy to see that. 

[00:13:09] Jason Cohen: And Zongjun, just for listeners to have context, this will be your second time in Yiwu in the tea mountains, right? 

[00:13:15] Zongjun Li: Yeah. Second. 

[00:13:17] Jason Cohen: What surprised you most the first time? I've been a couple of times going all the way back to 2007.

So, what surprised you since your first time was just two years ago on an extension of the 2023 research trip? 

[00:13:31] Zongjun Li: What surprised me, how developed Yunnan is right now. Because before the trip Jason was really priming me how we need to be ready into venturing into the jungles.

And we didn't get to venture into the jungles until probably like 10 miles away from Yiwu town. And we're still on this like four-lane highway and it's, we are pretty close to civilization, but once we are in Yiwu, it's quite a different world. You are surrounded by nature.

You are surrounded by flying mountain chickens and all kinds of vegetations and tea in all of the hidden places. So, very harmonical between nature and it's like very different from all the other tea gardens that we have visited. Like, it's not a tea garden, it's a forest. 

[00:14:19] Jason Cohen: A tea forest, yeah. I will, in my defense, Zongjun, what year was that highway built?

[00:14:26] Zongjun Li: Good question. I don't know. It's like two years, three years ago maybe. 

[00:14:31] Jason Cohen: It wasn't finished, Zongjun! We were on it in 2023. The highway wasn't finished. It finished this year. 

[00:14:37] Zongjun Li: Oh yeah. It looks brand new. That was a new highway. 

[00:14:40] Pat Penny: It is brand new. 

[00:14:42] Jason Cohen: It is. Yeah. I mean, it's true. When I was in Yunnan the first time in 2007, it was not developed. It was truly, it was, it was going into another world. And now that other world is in many ways disappearing.

They finished the highway this year. I got a, I got some notes from a friend who said that, you were just here two years ago. When you show up this year, you're not gonna recognize the place. A welcome center's been built at the end of the highway. There's a big viewing pavilion to go out and look at a tea mountain.

It's developing and in some ways these things are good. It's good that there's running water and electricity and clean water and some infrastructure. It's good that it doesn't take more than a day's drive to get from the villages into an actual town with schools and hospitals.

But on the other hand, the highway destroyed lots of old grove tea. It destroyed lots of tea forest. A lot of the families used to harvest that aren't even harvesting the tea that was untouched next to the highway. They say it's no good. They say that it's too hot for electric cars.

So even though China's so rapidly electrifying, that the electric cars aren't used in that mountain because in the summertime, the flat top could be over a hundred degrees and the batteries would then be at like 120 something degrees. And yeah, it's a big deal that, that the highways there and, we saw it in Wudong.

Not even to talk about Wuyi, but right in Wudong people driving their Audis up into the Wudong Mountain. And then it's like, an hour and a half, two hours of just sitting in bumper to bumper traffic, your Audi next to someone's Bentley, to go bid against each other on the 300 year old... 

[00:16:24] Pat Penny: So I don't know if anything will be as bad as Hangzhou though. I've never sat in more traffic next to tons of nice cars than I did in Hangzhou. 

[00:16:33] Jason Cohen: Yeah. This is why we're not riding the 

[00:16:34] Zongjun Li: We have heard rumors of Yiwu being a helicopter heavy town. So expecting to see some incoming choppers, 

[00:16:43] Jason Cohen: But Zongjun so that's interesting that you talked about that development, but then culturally, Yunnan is still quite distinct, right? Despite the development the culture has not been degraded. The culture is still there, right? I would say this time I interacted a lot more. This was when we were on the Jingmai side. I interacted a lot more with the specific minority group that we were there. That was the Bulang minority group that I hadn't spent a whole lot of time with before. And I would say that culture is incredibly strong, and it's notably different in, in, in numerous ways. I don't know Zongjun that being your first time in Yunnan two years ago, did you find anything surprising on that side?

Living in China full time, mostly full time, right? What did you find surprising? I think that's a really interesting question. 

[00:17:33] Zongjun Li: Yeah. My background is, my ethnicity background is Han and China is really a Han country. 90% of the people living here are like me.

And Yunnan is quite the opposite. Han is the minority in that province. And you see all these ethnicities, different people coming from all parts of China actually living there, staying with the locals, practicing their own culture, it's quite a interesting scene to watch. Almost reminds me a little bit of India. How different people with ethnical background not only having different culture maybe, but also speaking different languages and eating different food and doing the things differently. 

That's very interesting to see. You almost cannot believe you're still in China. And that part being well preserved, you still have all these people respecting each other and being very hospital to visitors and really wanted to show us their way of life and what they think are interesting and beautiful. So we had a really wonderful time in Jingmai and all the other tea producing regions in Yunnan that we end up visiting.   

[00:18:43] Pat Penny: Awesome. Do you both feel like you've touched upon the expectations question 

[00:18:47] Zongjun Li: No. 

[00:18:47] Pat Penny: that we were originally answering? 

[00:18:49] Jason Cohen: I was gonna revert. I was gonna ask you, can you remind me what question I'm supposed be answering?

My expectations, this will be my fourth, fifth time in, in Yunnan, fourth, fifth time going to the tea mountains. But I really had to rebuild. When we went in 2023, the whole point was to start to rebuild these relationships so that we could go back because my relationships had atrophied since I was there in 2007, 2009. 

So we went back in 2023 to start building and rebuilding these relationships. And this was after we were in Chaozhou, in Wudong doing the 2023 research trip on Dancong tea. But Zongjun and I continued on and we went to Jingmai and we had a pretty amazing time in Jingmai. We did a bit of work in Menghai.

We saw some shou pu'er production, then we went to Yiwu to see the, really, the birthplace of not just pu'er tea but in some theories, all teas. And I think what's changed for me since I started, I, it was pu'er tea that got me into tea, right? It was pu'er tea that, that got me started in tea. And I always felt like I could purchase and taste and understand it. It was really the entryway for me. 

But I think what's changed in my practice and my level of understanding is the nuance and the complexities and this idea of traditions and living traditions. And there's a little bit of this knee jerk reaction that a lot of people who are new to tea have about how old is pu'er.

When did, you know puer is this ancient tea? We taught in the institute back in Penn State that well, really, there is no what we think of as pu'er tea pre 1900 ish, right? Song Ping Hao and Tong Xing Hao and the antique era, all of this developed and redeveloped much later than a lot of people think despite these trees, the tea forests haven't been tended to since easily Tang dynasty,

a lot of historical information pointing back even further, and used as tea. 

And so this idea of traditions and living arts and what is it that we're studying and what makes it meaningful has really changed for me in that time. I would say that my focus on terroir really at a different level, right? It's not just Yiwu, it's Yiwu as a range of mountains and each mountain tastes quite different. And being able to say, okay, well this tastes like Mahei, but actually this tastes like really good upslope Mahei, so it's Shui Yuan Keng and this tastes really sweet and honey and floral, so probably gaoshan and et cetera, et cetera.

So I, I would say that the thing that I'm looking forward to most is getting much further afield, is getting out of the villages where I spent most of the time and getting a day, two days, three days, maybe deep into the forest, covered in leeches, fighting off snakes, protecting Pat from spiders and seeing these ancient trees that are far more off the beaten path and just really getting an understanding of the forest and the forest maintenance and the practices and the variations and practices there. 

Do they let the moss stay on the tree? Do they weed the garden? Do they leave the garden? How tightly dense are the tea groves? Are the tea groves equilateral spaced, which points to ancient arbor versus are they totally wild? Have they been pollarded? Who's doing the picking? Is it one of the itinerant minority groups or is it specific individuals who are allowed to tend and pick from specific trees and groves?

Anyway, that was a really long answer, but that's what I'm hoping to get into this time. 

[00:22:26] Pat Penny: I don't think anyone who listens to our podcast expects short answers from you. But, I think you did start to touch upon a question that Alex, who's joining us here dropped in the chat. For all of you listening later on, joining the AMA live is the best way to have your questions answered. We have a backlog of questions from Instagram but you get to skip that if you're here and you drop it in the chat. So, thank you, Alex, for dropping your question in the chat. 

So Jason, you were talking about where we're gonna be going, where you've gone before in Yunnan. So, why do we choose Yiwu this time versus anywhere else in Yunnan? And, how do you see our itinerary looking? I think you started to touch upon this based on the relationship building, right? And everything you said. 

[00:23:01] Jason Cohen: Yeah. 

[00:23:01] Pat Penny: But, go ahead and answer it deeper.

[00:23:04] Jason Cohen: All of these trips, we focus on a single area. And we try to make the area as tight as possible in order to learn as much as possible. And so Yunnan is huge. And, I think that there's a good question if you can even cover Yunnan, if you can cover all of pu'er tea in a single book. You could write your own book just about Yiwu but any research on pu'er probably has to start in Yiwu.

Yiwu was the historical trading center for the forest tea. It has one of the longest running traditions of continuous harvesting from the six famous tea mountains. It is where, fairly or unfairly, the majority of focus has been. And even to the point you could say that something that's outside of that traditional area like Lao Ban Zhang was almost in response to this over focus on Yiwu. 

So, we're going to Yiwu again. Because that's definitely the place to start. And it's the best place to see the ancient tea trees, the processing and to really gain an understanding of what every other area measures itself against.

You go anywhere else. They'll say, this is as good as, or this replicates, or this is similar to always in reference to something in Yiwu.   

[00:24:23] Pat Penny: Maybe Zongjun, you can build as well. When you guys visited two years ago, you obviously built relationships in that area, and so that's kind of why we're going back.

What would it look like if we were gonna try to go to a different area, right? Like we, we can't just show up. Right? What does that look like in your mind? 

[00:24:39] Zongjun Li: Really, really, I don't know. One of the very memorable moment from last trip was one of our tea friends took us into a slope behind Mahei.

It was Jason and I and him, and we were standing in the tea forest in Mahei, and he was pointing to all sides of the mountains surrounding Yiwu. 'Cause Yiwu was basically the trading center and everyone needs to come to Yiwu historically to sell their teas. 

And he was like, okay. So behind that mountain ridge is Wan Gong, and over there is Bo He Tang, and you have Cha Wang Shu all the way up at the slope. And as he was pointing his finger into the distance, I see just like a sea of green forests. I no idea what's in there? Do people actually live in those places?

Had to question myself. But, it was super cool to actually put my feets into those unexplored area and actually be able to see what's going on on the ground. So, that's super excited. 

[00:25:36] Pat Penny: I think, it's Yiwu for now and it could be that we love it so much and we learn so much that it's Yiwu again another time. 

But certainly, there, there will come a time where we try to set up more relationships, I think, outside of Yiwu and these trips that are always much more impactful when we have the relationships and we're able to meet with the right people, get the right access to things and really learn at a deeper level.

'Cause if we just show up in another tea village we're not gonna get a lot done. But luckily we have a couple people this time who are gonna host us and I'm really excited about what we're gonna see with them. 

[00:26:08] Zongjun Li: Yeah. 

[00:26:10] Pat Penny: Okay. Thank you for the question. All right, Jason, I know you got a couple questions that were submitted via email.

Did you wanna pop into those? 

[00:26:17] Jason Cohen: Yeah, we could definitely do that. Let's see. Main goal for the trip. How do these trips enhance or add or allow for the research of the writing? You can take that one Pat, you've been hosting. 

[00:26:32] Pat Penny: Sure. Yeah. The writing, well, main goals, I think outside of doing background research to continue writing and to eventually write a book which I think you kind of alluded to a little bit, Jason.

Maybe a pu'er book, maybe multiple pu'er books. Maybe a Yiwu book. Who knows? Outside of 

[00:26:49] Jason Cohen: One book. 

[00:26:50] Pat Penny: One book, sure. 

[00:26:50] Jason Cohen: One book. Few thousand pages. That's all. 

[00:26:52] Zongjun Li: 2000 pages. 

[00:26:55] Pat Penny: Okay. So after we write the pu'er table reference text guide, textbook, outside of that, well, it's not really outside of that. Everything we do, I think is in service of what we hope to put into the books, right?

So I think it's all about gathering this firsthand experience, really seeing these practices in person. Beyond that, forming relationships. So I think, tea is this amazing hobby. It's this amazing culture. But you know, when it really boils down to it, it's really a, an avenue of connection.

And I feel like one of the things that we get out of this is that these trips provide us with lots of friendships, right? And often these friendships net other benefits for us in the future and for other trips. We've had some of our relationships help set us up with other people on different research trips or help connect us with people so that we can find out different answers to questions we have.

A lot of stuff that we're doing is not things that you can just go search on the internet and get an answer. And sometimes it's things that, you know, even in English or in Mandarin, with access to great books from amazing libraries, we still can't find the answer, right? We're gonna be getting a lot of, I think, amazing firsthand experience, and that's really what, I think, this is gonna be setting us up for.

And that's the goal of this trip in my mind. But man beyond that, a lot of fun. My, my goal is also just to have a great time with you guys. There's always tough parts, but for the most part, it's just a great time together. 

[00:28:16] Jason Cohen: It's definitely type B fun. So it's not always fun immediately in the moment, particularly when you're, it's a hundred degrees, a hundred percent humidity. You've been walking for hours. There's a, there's certainly some pain and suffering that goes onto it. 

But I, I would say and I've come back to this a few times, is that one of the most important things, and the reason that people trust us and make friends with us and are willing to reveal so much to us is because we're non-commercial, is because we are so intensely academic and we, we don't sell tea, we don't sell teaware. We're never gonna sell tea, we're never gonna sell teaware. 

All we wanna do is write these books, make sure they're factually correct and publish great information in English. And I think that goes a long way. And, Zongjun you could talk about this, you easily have access to other tea circles in China.

But you know, there are very few groups. Maybe nearly no groups that have the type of relationship that we do. 'Cause there's so little of this general public knowledge publication that's not trying to promote or sell or do anything other than advance the pure knowledge of these topics.

[00:29:28] Zongjun Li: Yeah. Tea is always tied with money in China and pu'er especially so. I guess my first exposure to pu'er when I was a kid was the pu'er bubble back in the days. And that was I think still haunted a lot of people to these days that they, they don't want to touch pu'er because it feels too deep water that they might drown along with their wallet.

So it's something that's people do not really, be able to view it with a very pure lens. You kind of see that in some of the academic publications and some of the scholars that we have talked to take a similar approach to study tea. 

But usually, in China when you are talking about tea, when you are trying to quote unquote educate people about tea, you're trying to sell them something usually with a higher price tag than normal. And, usually we call it intelligence tax that you have paid as a consumer. It's a slang in China. 

But it's not very common to see people just showed up and just wanted to learn tea. I think we surprised a handful of farmers in Yunnan too. 'Cause sometimes at the end they were saying like, okay, so how much tea do you want? And we can start talking about the price tag or wholesale prices. And we're like, oh no, we don't intend to buy anything from you other than gain knowledge. 

[00:30:47] Pat Penny: Sometimes we do have to buy things.

[00:30:48] Jason Cohen: Well, we'll take a little bit on the side, but we're not doing wholesale 

[00:30:51] Pat Penny: Yeah. 

[00:30:51] Zongjun Li: For our own consumption. 

[00:30:53] Jason Cohen: Yeah. But that's one of the magic moments, right? 'Cause when we do that and they realize that we're serious. Right? 

[00:30:59] Zongjun Li: Yeah. 

[00:30:59] Jason Cohen: Then they start to go back and to revise and to add nuance and to 

[00:31:04] Zongjun Li: Yeah. They really opened up after that. 

[00:31:07] Jason Cohen: It really changes. It really changes a lot for us. And it's what gets us invited back and they say, come with me next time. Let me show you. Let me actually show you what I'm doing.

[00:31:19] Pat Penny: I feel like we touched on that then, the goal. Feel satisfied with that. We continue to just get down rabbit holes on every question that I think we answer. 

This one I didn't expect. This one came to us on Instagram. What makes you nervous about this trip? 

[00:31:35] Jason Cohen: What makes me nervous about this trip? 

[00:31:37] Zongjun Li: Laotian beer. 

[00:31:38] Jason Cohen: Oh yeah. Laotian beer. Don't drink that stuff. 

[00:31:41] Pat Penny: It's gotta be cleaner than the Yunnan water. 

[00:31:44] Jason Cohen: No. It's full of propylene glycol to stabilize it, and it gives you a pounding headache. 

[00:31:50] Pat Penny: So we'll be chugging a few of those every night. I think we're gonna have much better luck with tea on this trip than our last trip, but much worse luck with beer because we had some pretty decent beer in Wuyi.

[00:32:00] Jason Cohen: Yeah, I don't think so. I've never had worse food in China than in Yiwu Village. 

[00:32:06] Pat Penny: Oh, thank you. I'm so excited for that. 

[00:32:08] Jason Cohen: Maybe it's like the only place I've been in China and just been like, maybe I'll starve. I will say the local,

[00:32:13] Zongjun Li: The home cookings were nice. 

[00:32:14] Jason Cohen: It's okay. We ask people even who live there, and we're like, where do you eat in this village? And they're like, home, stay home. Yeah, I will say the local moldy tofu is, just think of it like blue cheese. It's all right. 

[00:32:32] Zongjun Li: Tastes like blue cheese tastes. 

[00:32:33] Jason Cohen: It does actually taste like blue cheese.

It's very disconcerting to eat something that tastes like blue cheese in China, but the moldy tofu looks and tastes like blue cheese. 

[00:32:42] Zongjun Li: Pretty good actually. 

[00:32:43] Pat Penny: So ready for severe intestinal distress. 

[00:32:46] Jason Cohen: That's a home thing actually. We felt fine on that. We felt worse with the unidentified shao kao. 

[00:32:52] Pat Penny: In Wuyi? 

[00:32:53] Jason Cohen: No in Yunnan as well.

[00:32:55] Pat Penny: Oh, you doubled down on that? Well, I guess this was the previous trip, but yeah. 

[00:32:59] Jason Cohen: This was the previous trip. But yeah, it was probably like mountain shrew or something. It was, it wasn't, 

[00:33:04] Pat Penny: What flavor profile compare against the field rat that we ate in Wuyi?

[00:33:09] Jason Cohen: Much more nutty.

[00:33:11] Pat Penny: Oh, okay. I wonder what its diet was.

[00:33:13] Jason Cohen: Acorns, pure acorn diet. 

[00:33:15] Pat Penny: So Jason, is what you're nervous about the food in Yiwu then? Or what's, what are you nervous about? 

[00:33:21] Jason Cohen: What am I nervous about? When Zongjun and I were there, we crossed paths with a very poisonous snake. That was just the one that we saw. I've previously had leeches on me in Yunnan. Ticks are indigenous. Malaria. One of you guys should probably grab like a malaria Malarone prescription or something. 

[00:33:42] Pat Penny: I thought that China had eradicated malaria. 

[00:33:44] Jason Cohen: Mostly, but I mean, it flies over from Laos from time to time. 

[00:33:48] Pat Penny: Okay. I did go to a travel clinic today and they told me that I'll probably be fine on malaria.

[00:33:52] Jason Cohen: Yeah, I love that. 

You'll probably be fine. Where are you going again? 

[00:33:56] Pat Penny: Oh, China. And I was like, well, southwestern China. I was like, by the border of Laos, but okay. 

[00:34:03] Jason Cohen: Yeah. If Japanese encephalitis can get you, malaria could definitely get you. 

Yeah, I would say if anything, I'm most nervous of us being waylaid, less so by food poisoning. I think food, we're gonna be eating with families and stuff, and we're not gonna do the late night shao kao and Laotian beer. We've learned our lesson. 

[00:34:21] Zongjun Li: Not even once. 

[00:34:23] Jason Cohen: Not even once Zongjun! Not even once. 

[00:34:26] Pat Penny: Are you sure? 

[00:34:29] Zongjun Li: Come on Pat. 

[00:34:30] Pat Penny: I know, Zongjun, let's go. Jason. Jason got destroyed on maocha. Let's go eat some questionable food. 

[00:34:37] Jason Cohen: Yeah, I'm most worried about the, the wildlife. 

[00:34:42] Pat Penny: Zongjun? 

[00:34:43] Zongjun Li: Me most worried about... 

[00:34:45] Pat Penny: What makes you nervous about this trip? 

[00:34:47] Zongjun Li: Not seeing enough, I would say. 

Yunnan people are not famous for being well planners and we frequently got invited to things like very last minute or even like in the middle of something, they grab us to a different place. 

That's both like hopes of serendipity and also hopes of missing something. I guess we're going back to Yunnan again in the future. But just the whole FOMO kind of sketch me out a little bit. 

[00:35:15] Jason Cohen: I agree with that. I agree with that. I also hope that our presence isn't too disruptive during harvest, right? 

If we rocked up and attempted to buy top quality gushu maocha, the price would obviously like triple if they would even bother to sell it to us. So we're gonna be with some contacts who are likely gonna be trying to do that, and I hope they don't say, you wait here and then wander into the forest to go negotiate without us.

I hope that we are not disruptive in, in a negative way to the process and that we get to see it and that we're treated as, non-negative influences on operations. 

[00:35:48] Pat Penny: Yeah, I think that's a really good call out. We're trying to see and learn as much as we can.

But obviously this is an extremely busy time of year for these farmers and all of our contacts, so definitely trying to get as much as we can without being in the way. 

I think for me to touch on this question, it's kind of what you touched on in the beginning, Jason. I'm not really afraid of leeches, but spiders and snakes definitely doesn't sound so fun. Snakes themselves don't bother me. But knowing that there's highly poisonous snakes, yeah. Let's have our eyes out.

[00:36:19] Jason Cohen: I got one. What are misconceptions about Yunnan pu'er that we've encountered and on what do we hope to debunk while we're there? I have a mean one, but I'll let you guys go first. 

[00:36:32] Pat Penny: I'm gonna let Zongjun take it. 

[00:36:36] Zongjun Li: Misconception about pu'er. And what we hope to debunk on this trip. 

It's a hard question. 

[00:36:42] Jason Cohen: I got a mean one. Yeah. It's you ain't got gushu, that tree ain't 400 years old. You're not drinking a thousand year king of tree qiao mu. 

[00:36:53] Pat Penny: So your whole goal is just we roll in and we just we pullard the trees, we take the rings, we do straight up tea tree aging.

We're like these trees are 50 years old. What are you talking about? This ain't gushu 

[00:37:03] Jason Cohen: Yeah. Yeah. I'm half joking. Facetious, right. But a lot of things that get claimed as old gushu and sold particularly in less scrupulous Western facing tea merchants.

Not calling anyone out specifically, but there's a lot of wild claims there. And part of the problem is that some of the merchants themselves believe these claims. They're going out into the fields and they're talking to farmers or people who have access to the land, and they're saying, oh yeah. Right, gushu, gushu, gushu. 

We heard this in Wudong. People say, the trees age at 10 years per year. So you come back three years, five years later. And the tea is 50 years older. The tree is 50 years older than it was. It went from 200 years to 250 years. 

But you're getting that at a much larger level, I think, in Yunnan. And people are doing a poor job of training themselves to know what gushu tastes like and that's something that I hope that we can help set the record straight.

[00:38:04] Zongjun Li: I guess for me it's to gain more experience and really be able to tell the difference between different regions. 'Cause Yiwu is almost a big basket. People can throw just whatever tea into this place and under this name and gets laundried and all of a sudden it's Yiwu tea.

You don't really be able to trace what, where exactly is these tea being grown and being produced from 'cause there are so many segmented terroir under this whole region. So, be able to really gain the experience and be able to tell exactly if this tea is in fact actually from Yiwu region, I think will be very helpful. 

[00:38:41] Pat Penny: I think that pretty closely aligns with my thoughts. We've had great teachers who have given us good samples to try and train our palettes on what is the taste of a certain region, a certain village, a certain mountain. But I think being in a place and being able to actually see the tea being processed and then tasting like the maocha then and there, that's gonna be the thing that either debunks or affirms my knowledge on every specific area and mountain.

And I'm so excited for that. So I really wanna see like how much, how true a lot of the things that I believe about specific flavors or profiles of an area hold to be. So that, that's gonna be amazing. 

[00:39:19] Jason Cohen: That touches on one of the in chat questions, one of the live questions we got, which is, do the regions you choose also align with regions that we tend to reach for in our drinking?Do we gravitate to Yiwu as a tea drinker?

And I think that's a really difficult question to answer 'cause as Zongjun said, Yiwu is not one mountains, right? People will make generalities and say, Jingmai is bitter and has the highest astringency and takes a long time to age. And Menghai is for shou pu'er. And Yi Bang and Ban Zhang are all camphor and woody and Yiwu is all lightened floral, right? 

But like within Yiwu, if we talk to anyone within Yiwu, no one says Yiwu tea unless they're talking about Yiwu Village surrounding. They're talking about Gaoshan tea and Mahei tea and Wa Long tea. No, no one says, this is the flavor of Yiwu, the area is too big, right? The tea is too diverse. Gua Feng Zhai tastes nothing like Gaoshan. 

So I think that this idea of, is there a flavor of Yiwu? It's like, I don't know, is there a flavor of Jura wine? Is there a flavor of Highland scotch? Yeah, kind of. But you know, each individual area has so much of its own profile.

And so I would say that even now, for 20 years of drinking pu'er, can I identify specific Yiwu sub regions? Only if I've had great references that I trust. I think at this point I can do Mahei 'cause one of our contacts specializes in Mahei and its sub regions including I think I can do Bo He Tang. I think I can do Wan Gong. I think I can do Gaoshan, but others, I don't know. 

[00:41:03] Zongjun Li: Need more data points.

[00:41:05] Pat Penny: Yeah, there's a pretty amazing tea meme that's floating around Instagram, which is like, Superman walking into a room. And it's like that look or that feel that I have when I walk into work. And I know I'm the only one who can identify single mountain gushu pu'er tea. 

I love those memes. There's a few of them that have been coming out and I'm just like, you know what? This might be true for me coming up pretty soon. Let's see. 

[00:41:28] Jason Cohen: Can't believe you haven't sent those to me, Pat.   

[00:41:31] Pat Penny: I'll send 'em to you right after this. They're really good. They make me laugh so hard when I see them. There's a few. 

Okay. I think we definitely touched on that, but I do wanna build a little bit. So, I do think to some degree yes, we end up going to places that have tea that we respect and enjoy. I think we're also kind of hitting the big ones to start. 

These are the things that we knew we wanted to write about. These are the things we knew we wanted to learn more about. I don't think it's specifically that we're like just drinking a ton of Yiwu tea but as to what you addressed in the beginning, Jason's like, Yiwu is the place to begin if we want to continue learning about pu'er tea.

You know, it, it would be hard to go to some of these places and not be a drinker of that kind of tea. What are you doing? I don't know. 

[00:42:11] Jason Cohen: Pat, we were talking about this identification. I have two questions on this. What have you done to prepare for this trip for tasting tea, for researching tea?

Have you reread things, that kind of thing. And where do you think that your identification skills are gonna be challenged on this trip? 

[00:42:31] Pat Penny: So you don't mean preparing like all of my REI shopping. You don't want that. 

[00:42:35] Jason Cohen: You can talk about that more, but I think everyone's more interested in the 

[00:42:39] Pat Penny: Yeah.

[00:42:39] Jason Cohen: What brand of pants did you buy? 

[00:42:42] Pat Penny: None of them fit me. Dude. My thighs are way too thick. I tried on so many things at REI.

On the preparing side, so the past two years that we've been going into these trips, I have been doing a lot of reading. I've been going back over my notes. I've been referencing some of, kind of the standard books that we all have read in the past. And this is the first one where actually I'm trying to really go in with a blank slate. So I haven't been doing too much research to prepare for the trip. 

Tasting wise, I have been drinking a shit ton of pu'er, so, I have been going through a lot of my single origin samples and just trying to re solidify my flavor memory around some of them. I wouldn't say I have enough of any single village tea to say that, oh, I've got enough data points to know but at least trying to give myself a frame of reference before we go into the mountains. So that, that's been definitely an area where I've been focused on preparation.   

On the knowledge side, I'm just hoping to have it all dropped on me like bricks. And if I go, oh yeah, I remember that, then that's great. But I don't intend to come in super sharp, like, oh, this is what I read. I'd rather hear it directly from them. 

[00:43:41] Jason Cohen: And when we get tested, day one of this trip, we arrive in Yiwu and they lay five teas down in front of us and they say, single garden, go. 

[00:43:50] Pat Penny: Then they're gonna, they're gonna send me back to the airport. I think I could do some of it. We'll see. We'll see.

[00:43:56] Jason Cohen: Is there an area? Do you have some cakes from an area that you think like, all right, this has a specific flavor? 

[00:44:01] Pat Penny: Well, the sample that you sent me, that Wan Gong from last year or two years ago that's one where I went back and I was just like, okay, I think I can do this. If we go to Wan Gong or if we're getting tea from that area, I think I can point this one out. 

[00:44:14] Jason Cohen: That was something that really impressed me. The Wan Gong cake, the Wan Gong area. 

I've been doing the opposite of Pat. I've been rereading like crazy going over, of course, my old notes from 2023, but also rereading a bunch of historical documents, historical treatises. So looking at Tang Dynasty era tax policy for Yunnan tea. Yeah, that's a good one. 

[00:44:40] Pat Penny: Well, top Tang Dynasty tea for horse trade. Not so bad. They were pretty okay. They went from like 5,000 horses to like, three quarters of a million. They did decent.

[00:44:49] Jason Cohen: Yeah, at like 5,000 tales of silver. 

[00:44:52] Pat Penny: It gets worse in the Song.   

[00:44:55] Jason Cohen: But I was saying, I've been rereading tons of stuff including Tang Dynasty era tax policy. All of that work. And then also looking at early Han migration patterns into Yunnan for tin mining and the collectivization of whether or not things were considered to be part of core Central China and why the various bans on mining didn't apply to Yunnan mountain regions, which were seen as hinterlands.

So, doing that, but also I had some of our contacts put together tasting samples for me. So that I could be sure to beat both of you at a blind tasting. So I got a set of different single origin samples and some of these came in at single garden and one of them came in at a single tree.

I don't think I've ever previously knowingly, maybe one, is the Hani cake that two, at least two of us have, is that a single tree? I don't know if that's single tree. 

[00:45:52] Zongjun Li: I don't think so. Was it a white package? 

[00:45:55] Jason Cohen: Yeah, the pure white unlabeled package. Yeah. 

[00:45:58] Zongjun Li: Okay. Maybe that was 'cause 

[00:45:59] Jason Cohen: That's a Hani tribe tea, that is definitely gushu, a hundred percent gushu, but I don't know if that's single tree.

So this might be the only time I've ever tasted single tree pu'er. 

[00:46:11] Zongjun Li: Interesting. When we were in Yiwu last time, people were telling us that's really rarely made 'cause they think that single tree being frequently a little bit one dimensional and they just use it as a really a reference for their own use. So, 

[00:46:26] Jason Cohen: This isn't pressed into a cake. It's basically maocha. 

[00:46:29] Zongjun Li: Oh. 

[00:46:30] Pat Penny: So what Jason is telling us is that he got a bunch of awesome samples to do a bunch of preparation so he can kick our asses. And he did not even let us know that samples was like an option. Kind of rude, honestly.   

[00:46:42] Jason Cohen: So Zongjun, what have you done to prepare for this trip? Knowledge, reading, tasting. 

[00:46:47] Zongjun Li: Yeah, really trying to figure out how we get there without drivers this time. And how I can get my ge men in and out of Yiwu safely. 

[00:46:55] Pat Penny: And we appreciate you for that. 

[00:46:58] Zongjun Li: Yeah. Knowledge wise, 

[00:46:59] Jason Cohen: Don't, don't thank him till it's done Pat. You have no idea what we went to last time. 

[00:47:04] Zongjun Li: Wait, what? 

[00:47:06] Pat Penny: I'm just imagining, when we were in Yixing and we went to that random craft beer bar and there was no way for us to get home. I'm imagining that, but like much further in the middle of nowhere. 

[00:47:16] Jason Cohen: That would've been like a three hour walk. This would be like a three day walk. 

[00:47:19] Zongjun Li: The worst case scenario in Yixing last time, it's like a five star hotel right next to us. It's, 

[00:47:27] Pat Penny: Yeah. Not too bad. 

[00:47:28] Zongjun Li: Yeah, not too bad. Maybe not here in Yiwu. But yeah, really want to trick Jason and sell him across the border to Laos. And my dealer didn't show up. That was a bummer.

[00:47:38] Jason Cohen: I would've made a great pig butcher.

[00:47:40] Zongjun Li: Yeah. Referencing own notes. Trying to read some of the books that our scholar friends has written, one of them who have really made the effort to put us into some of our very important contacts in Yiwu. So, getting myself more mentally prepared for all of these knowledge dump that I'm about to receive and also need to do simultaneous translation.

[00:48:03] Pat Penny: Zongjun does do an amazing job. And I don't think we ever show enough appreciation during the trip, but I hope you know before how much we appreciate what you're doing. 

[00:48:13] Zongjun Li: Yeah, it was Yixing teapot and this time I'm expecting gushu cakes. 

[00:48:19] Pat Penny: There'll be something. There'll be something.

[00:48:21] Jason Cohen: Alright, I think we have time for one more question. Is there a good one from Instagram, Pat? 

[00:48:26] Pat Penny: I've got a real chill one. Maybe we can do a real chill one and then we'll finish it off of a more serious one. So here we've got, getting to Yunnan must involve a few long trips. What will you be reading or watching in transit?

[00:48:37] Jason Cohen: I'm gonna take a book on the societal development of Yunnan. I have the book over there. It's called Between the Clouds, the Creation of Yunnan. So starts like pre Tang and goes into Qing Dynasty. Just some light reading for an 18 hour plane ride.   

[00:48:59] Pat Penny: The most Jason answer of all time. 

Zongjun, you've got a shorter trip, but I'm sure you're gonna be watching or reading something. Any plans? 

[00:49:06] Zongjun Li: I don't know. I'll be there in like two hours. So probably just listen to some musics. During the car ride, I think it's not really a good time to read anything. Carsick, a serious issue. But I'll make sure to take a lot of photos and really open the window, breathing the mountain breeze, hoping to smell some fragrance of tea miles away from Yiwu. I think that will be something really surreal. 

[00:49:29] Pat Penny: Awesome. All right. Yeah, for me, I was looking at my Libby, my e-library. I've got a couple books of the Mistborn series lined up, so we'll see how much I plow through that. Very opposite to what you were saying, Jason. And then I do still have From Dawn to Decadence, so I plan to get through a little more of that.

But, otherwise I'm gonna be on a nice 10 hour Delta flight. I might watch a movie or two. I'm pretty partial to Fast and Furious movies when I'm on a plane. It's just that perfect plane movie where you don't really have to care what's happening and you can just kind of zone out and enjoy with your meal. And when you feel like focusing on something more serious, you can turn it off and read or whatever. 

[00:50:04] Jason Cohen: So, that's funny. I could see why Fast and Furious is perfect plane movie. You could actually just watch it on mute. They only say one word repeatedly. 

[00:50:11] Zongjun Li: Really a perfect movie before a car ride up to Yiwu. 

[00:50:14] Jason Cohen: Return to snakes on a plane. 

[00:50:17] Pat Penny: We'll be watching nothing with snakes. Nothing with snakes. I'm good. I'm sure we'll get enough on a plane. 

[00:50:21] Jason Cohen: That'll really help you prepare you for Yunnan. 

[00:50:24] Pat Penny: I'm sure we will get enough. I'm so sure of that. 

Okay. Maybe our last one then. 

[00:50:30] Jason Cohen: Yes. 

[00:50:30] Pat Penny: Okay. So how do you expect this trip will benefit you and how will it benefit readers and listeners of Tea Technique?

[00:50:37] Jason Cohen: I think I have like a pretty short answer to this. It's just that these trips are a constant source of inspiration.

We've been writing this Yixing book for what, two years now? And I don't 

[00:50:50] Pat Penny: forever. 

[00:50:51] Jason Cohen: I mean, I have a lot of fortitude, I think. I don't know if I could keep doing this if these yearly trips weren't happening. I do this because I love it. It's a money losing enterprise by design, right?

Anything that we make, we're just plowing back into finding more information, running experiments, doing commissions, that kind of thing. And I don't know if I would have the constant source of energy and drive and inspiration if I didn't know that these trips, when they happen, they give a bunch of energy and as they come near, I start to get interested in other forms of research and thinking about other things. And I start reading these books about it. And it really is a very positive feedback loop and a spiral up. Yeah, and readers benefit 'cause I get to, to talk about it and relay these stories and stuff. So that's, yeah, very short answer. 

[00:51:40] Pat Penny: For you, it was, yeah. I'll touch on the energy piece.

These experiences, while they can be very tiring and taxing at the moment, often looking back on them and especially, just right after getting back home, I think they, they definitely give me the boost to get through another year's worth of editing. And listening to podcasts and editing chapters, doing research through scientific journals. And even right now thinking about the trip coming up next week has helped me get about halfway through this week's article, sorry Jason, but about halfway through. 

There's only so many things I think that you do in life that give you energy back. And this is one of those things that, continuously even thinking about like our trip from two years ago, can still give me the fire to get through a lot of other things. 

[00:52:23] Zongjun Li: Yeah, same here. And really the expectation of spend more time with you guys in person and doing something together that we are all interested in. I think this is something really magical and for the audience you can learn all about the bromance after our trip and with some sprinkles of knowledge, hopefully, in between. 

[00:52:44] Pat Penny: The Chaozhou bros go to Yiwu. That's this chapter of the book and become Yiwu bros. Question mark? 

[00:52:51] Jason Cohen: I hope so. 

[00:52:52] Pat Penny: Okay. Well, any last words? Anyone wants to add? 

[00:52:56] Jason Cohen: Gushu bros. 

[00:52:57] Pat Penny: Gushu bros. Jason I'll pass it off to you then for the usual closing. 

[00:53:03] Jason Cohen: Thank you everyone. This has been Tea Technique Editorial Conversations. We hope you join us again next time.

We're gonna finish up publishing the Yixing book hopefully this year, and we're gonna start working on this pu'er book. Thank you all so much. 

Chapter Discussion Sections: 

• 00:00 Introduction 
• 00:27 Identifying Slip Cast Yixing Teapots 
• 03:27 The Process of Slip Casting 
• 06:08 Quality and Acceptance of Slip Casting 
• 08:07 Historical Context of the Slip Casting Technique 
• 14:25 Legacy of Slip Casting

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jason Cohen: Hello everyone. I'm Jason Cohen, the author of An Introduction to the Art and Science of Chinese Tea Ceremony. Today we're discussing Book 2, Chapter 9, Section 6, Historical Experiments in Yixing Construction, Part One, Slip Casting Yixing Clay. Here to talk about this chapter is our editorial team, Patrick Penny.

[00:00:23] Pat Penny: Hey, hey. 

[00:00:23] Jason Cohen: And Zongjun Li. 

[00:00:25] Zongjun Li: Hello.   

[00:00:27] Jason Cohen: This chapter contains a note, a warning for practitioners not to use slip cast Yixing teapots. Why is that, and how can they identify a slip cast Yixing teapot?

[00:00:37] Pat Penny: The easy answer on why, they break, they crack, they're very prone to cracking. And it would be particularly sad if you had an example of one of these, which is generally going to be from, what were the years, the late 50s? Is that correct? It'd be sad if you had a 70 year old teapot and it was no longer intact because you decided to brew tea with it. 

[00:00:58] Zongjun Li: Yeah, and also the ultrafine clay particles made the surface really shiny and smooth. With some addition of feldspar and other materials, it really drastically increase the vitrification rate of the teapot. So it has a glassy texture. 

[00:01:16] Jason Cohen: Is that the only identifying attribute or quality, or is there some other way someone looking at a Yixing that they find could know that it's a slip cast Yixing teapot?

[00:01:27] Pat Penny: They often have a lot of tool marks in them so trying to remove the Yixing material from this mold would often cause there to be tool marks that are unable to be removed through ming zhen (明针) because the surface of the material is already so smooth that ming zhen (明针) wasn't able to often be properly applied so you'll see a lot of small indentations or imperfections because it's not able to be smoothed away. 

[00:01:50] Zongjun Li: Yeah, so you are basically using a ming zhen (明针) tool to scrape away all the imperfection on the surface. And a slip cast ware is usually very prone to deformation because it's really soft. It doesn't really have the kind of similar structural integration comparing to the normal zisha ware. 

[00:02:11] Jason Cohen: Are there any other identifying attributes?

Particularly, I'm thinking about artifacts left by the mold itself, something that separates it from either a poorly built, low level craftsman, an early production by apprentice versus something that is a telltale sign of it being slip cast.

Zongjun, you had mentioned the vitrification rate, the glassy surface, but is there something that's left by the mold itself that we could use as an identifying attribute?

[00:02:39] Pat Penny: Often with the slurry casted teapots, it would just be the body that was usually built by it. So I think you'd see clearly that all the other attached pieces, like potentially the lid knob, spout, the handle, these would clearly be a different texture because they would be hand built, so I think just the juxtaposition of the teapot body versus all the other components having that drastic difference would be another sign. 

[00:03:03] Jason Cohen: That is definitely true. The one other attribute that will frequently identify it is a seam line, a thin but present seam line across the body, down the center line. That's where the two pieces of the mold fit together and connected together and they were unable to smooth that with ming zhen (明针).

[00:03:20] Zongjun Li: Yeah. A lot of the plastic wares use similar technology too.   

[00:03:26] Jason Cohen: What is slip casting? What are slurry molds, and how do they work?

[00:03:31] Zongjun Li: One good imagination of a slurry mold is basically when you're trying to cook a very thick soup in a giant pot, and you pour the soup out, but you still have some leftover in the pot. And as the pot is still being heated, and as the soup inside the pot is slowly getting dehydrating, you end up having this layer of crust sitting inside the surface of the pot. And that's basically the mechanism of how people make slurry mold wares. 

Dump a giant jug of slurry clay into a mold, and you pour a very specific quantity out from the slurry mold, leaving a layer of crust inside the slurry mold and let it dry. So the quantity of you pouring out from the mold and the time of you letting the slurry to dry inside the mold will determine the thickness of the ware.

[00:04:26] Jason Cohen: Pat, do you want to use a different metaphor?   

[00:04:28] Pat Penny: I've got so many great metaphors for this. Just the simplest one is just thinking of the molds themselves. So we talked about other tools and mold shape guides in the previous chapter so you could really just think about it as a piece of plaster or cement but it's just a strong and solid shape that has been carved away into some other material. And as you add this slurry, which is water and ultrafine clay particles mixed together, often with some agents to make sure that the clay particles aren't settling out, as you add that material in, it is able to basically form the negative like a photo right, almost the negative of the shape that the mold is cast into.

And the material for the mold needs to also be able to transmit water through it. So as the clay releases water through the mold, you eventually have it drying out, that slurry clay drying out, and you'll be able to at some point separate it from the mold. Although as we mentioned, it's not without some markings or deformation upon it.

[00:05:30] Jason Cohen: Just to clarify Zongjun's metaphor, the ware itself, the slurry clay inside the mold is not heated. The water is sucked out through the porous, technically micro porous structure of the plaster mold, leaving behind a thin layer of clay, which is then extracted, which is then jointed, which is then dried and fired in the standard methodology.

[00:05:54] Zongjun Li: That's right. It's unfortunately not clay soup. 

[00:05:58] Jason Cohen: Not a true soup. 

[00:06:00] Pat Penny: Not yet, but you know the future is still ours to shape. 

[00:06:05] Jason Cohen: To mold, Pat, to mold. 

[00:06:07] Pat Penny: No comment.

[00:06:08] Jason Cohen: Is this an accepted technique? Are there high quality wares made via slip casting? 

[00:06:13] Pat Penny: Not for Yixing teaware. 

[00:06:15] Jason Cohen: But for other ware? Is any high quality wares made from slip casting or do we consider this to be a low skill or low end technique?  

[00:06:23] Zongjun Li: Some of the porcelain wares are actually made by slip casting and they are doing perfectly fine. 

[00:06:30] Jason Cohen: Some of the good porcelain wares or any porcelain wares, imperial porcelain wares, Jingdezhen? What level should we consider this as a skill set, as a technique, as a methodology, or should we just bucket it as it didn't work in Yixing and it's not a good method?

[00:06:46] Zongjun Li: To my knowledge a handful of late Qing, Jingdezhen wares and also some of the higher quality European porcelain wares at the time are made out of such methodology and they present pretty good results.   

[00:07:00] Jason Cohen: Why is that? What is the difference? Is it that Yixing is a different material?Is it that Yixing is unglazed? Is it a combination of these things? Why can slip casting work with other materials, but not with Yixing? 

[00:07:13] Zongjun Li: Porcelain wares are glazed and it's really the glaze that's the contact surface to the tea versus Yixing is the clay itself. 

So in that sense, such a comparison is not fair. Because, you are essentially comparing two different material.   

[00:07:30] Pat Penny: Right, and the slurry material you need to make is going to have very different properties both pre and post firing than the hand built Yixing teapots.

We're going to see really different interaction with the tea because of the way that the material is prepared. 

[00:07:46] Jason Cohen: Maybe even shards, if we heed the warnings. 

[00:07:49] Pat Penny: Very true. So we're not supposed to be making tea with these slurry mill teapots. Beyond just the physical interaction, as we've talked about already at length, the appearance of these pots also present some deficits compared to the hand built products because of the Yixing material itself. 

[00:08:07] Jason Cohen: If slip casting resulted in such low quality or low utility wares with zisha clay, why did Yixing Factory 1 implement the method? 

[00:08:14] Zongjun Li: Efficiency, for sure, in the very first place. When F1 trying to increase their production and lower the cost, you can do a lot of mass production with such technique. But then they quickly found out that a lot of the parts do require the human touch, and the quality is really not up to the standard. 

[00:08:34] Pat Penny: And part of it was the labor resources they had as well. You had some people who probably early on in the F1 days did know how to work Yixing teapot material. But I'm sure you had many other people who were part of the collective labor force who were not experts by any means in making Yixing materials. So this was a way to hopefully use their labor more efficiently. But as we saw moving to the future, it did not become the standard methodology. 

[00:08:59] Jason Cohen: Were there any other factors at play, particularly political or ideological factors?

[00:09:04] Pat Penny: The application of slip casting to at least teapot construction was an imported ideology. While there's some evidence, I think you've mentioned in the book of slip casting in China previously, I think we didn't see it being implemented at least in the clay ware tea industry. 

So, it was technology that was in some ways being imported from some European countries with their porcelain ware production. So it might be that the Chinese Communist Party saw this potentially as something that was not Chinese in origin, which politically there may have been reasons to double down on traditional hand building methodologies as this failed.

[00:09:41] Jason Cohen: Or potentially the opposite. They saw this as imported technology, which was needed to leapfrog the current level of technological abilities and turn a craft into industry. Do you think that it was the Yixing ceramic craftsmen and artists themselves who potentially were ideologically biased against the imported technology into the art form?

Or do you think that the government would have been for or against it?  

[00:10:09] Zongjun Li: At the time, any kind of importation and implementation of knowledge was very top down, like individual artists under the organization would not really have any opinions or sayings in making any decisions. 

I would say that it's probably from a very top down management that doesn't really know what Yixing production should be, or can be, and saw this opportunity of increase production quantity And just start implementing the technology, without a lot of conversation or a lot of hands down experiment with real artists or real production.   

And later on, abandoning such technology I think was definitely from bottom up. It's definitely feedback from actual artists making the production telling the management that this is not going to have results that live up to the standard. 

This is most likely the interaction between the decision makers and actual artists.   

[00:11:12] Jason Cohen: How did that failure of slip casting shape the view of technology by craftsmen in Yixing going forward?

[00:11:20] Zongjun Li: They really start to putting up a question mark on a lot of the technology that they trying to implement or a lot of the traditional technology or at the time outdated technology that they trying to give up. Like, for example milling Yixing ore into powder. Traditionally you use stone mill for milling.

And later on, people start to implement Raymond Mill, which is a metal ball mill to mill Yixing ore into powder, which result into a very spherical shape Yixing clay that doesn't necessarily play well with water and with Yixing construction. The deformation rate is significantly higher.

So right now, people are trying to use stone mill for better quality teapot construction in Yixing versus using more efficient machinery.   

[00:12:12] Pat Penny: I would agree that the Yixing craftsmen have stuck to tradition maybe through some of these experiences, their predecessors having failure with adapting new technologies, but I think we do still see Yixing artisans today who are open to new innovations or new technologies but I think they weigh them very carefully and are very methodical about testing them against the performance of some of these traditional methodologies. 

[00:12:36] Zongjun Li: That's right. That's right. It's not like they're trying to just abandon modernization, right? We see all these clay extrusion machine in Yixing town that's very widely used. And I think people doesn't really necessarily have any problem with that. 

[00:12:52] Jason Cohen: What is the linkage between slip casting and shape guides? 

[00:12:57] Pat Penny: Many of the plaster molds that were used for slip casting, pouring slurry into, when used with non slurry clay basically, you can take the clay, press them into those shapes to still get proper guides. So I think the application of the plaster molds themselves is perfectly fine, as long as the slurry going into it is not a material like we see being used in the 50s to 60s slip casting.

[00:13:25] Jason Cohen: And yet, those original plaster slurry molds becoming guides, is that not a form of new technology or imported technology? Should we view it this way or should we view it as something else? 

[00:13:38] Pat Penny: I think it's an adaptation of the technology to best fit the art forms. As we were just saying, the Yixing craftsmen, they certainly do innovate. And I think this is a form of innovation where it did increase the efficiency of building these teapots. You didn't need maybe quite the same level of skill because you could use the plaster mold to at least help with the shaping. Particularly, when we're talking about the ROC period, F1 period but, you know, nowadays, as we had mentioned in the last chapter, we don't look at there being anything wrong with a half hand built teapot, leveraging these shape molds.

[00:14:10] Zongjun Li: Yeah, I think the key difference is that what's going into a shape guide is Yixing clay, and what's going into a slurry mode is slurry, like the material, it's it's different and the result is different. 

[00:14:25] Jason Cohen: That is a great way to put it. My last question, was there any way in which the slip casting method was successful?

[00:14:34] Zongjun Li: Porcelain, maybe? 

[00:14:36] Jason Cohen: No, in Yixing.   

[00:14:37] Zongjun Li: In Yixing? 

[00:14:39] Pat Penny: The production of shape guides that's one legacy of slip casting that is positive. You can use slip casting for commodity wares. So if you want not great, not Yixing teapots, so teapots made of other material that it gets sold online as Yixing teapots.   

[00:14:56] Zongjun Li: Or other things, like flower pots, made by jiani (甲泥).

[00:15:00] Jason Cohen: It protects the low end of the market, it protects Yixing from the low end of the market. 

It's a difficult question. I found that this chapter was more interesting to write than I expected it to be, particularly with the three sections on its history and its legacy. On the other hand, I do have difficulty answering this question. Is there any way in which it is successful?

I think the legacy of leaving behind more consistent shape guides helped inform F1's production methodology and particularly its ability to train many ceramic artists, ceramic craftsmen, to become ceramic artists. 

And, as we were just saying, the idea that the failure of slip casting in Yixing reinforced how different the art of Yixing is both being an ore that's processed into clay, a very difficult clay to work with, a clay with unique property, is a clay that is not glazed, which means you can't hide any surface defects and it reinforces idioculture of Yixing craft as its own art form separate from the perhaps larger arc of ceramics. 

And potentially the failure of slip casting led to the preservation of many of the techniques and much of the skepticism of modernizing techniques such as ball mills or such as clay dyes or such as added colorant compounds that still pervade the top end of the market.

It's hard to say exactly what was successful about slurry molds, but I find them to be an important and interesting part of Yixing history. 

[00:16:45] Zongjun Li: Yeah, I think it's one of those really inevitable experiment that happens during the period. Not only you see that in Yixing production, but also tea production, like production of trying to artificially accelerate the aging process of pu'er. Luckily on that end we end up having shou pu'er. It's not totally garbage. I still enjoy drinking shou pu'er but it's a different tea than aged sheng.

[00:17:09] Jason Cohen: Well, everyone, that's all the time that we have for today. Thank you for joining us in this edition of Tea Technique Editorial Conversations. Please join us again for our next conversation, Firing of Zisha Clay.