where to buy yixing

[Ian McCarthy]

I am looking for a good retailer of quality yixing pots online, one that might be open to wholesaling for a cafe. Any ideas? I am looking for smaller, (100-200 ml-ish), of a more traditional design. No thirty-ounce pots depicting a dragon hatching from an egg...

And has anyone tried this place?

http://www.yixingteapotsale.com/

I hate to judge a book by its cover, but the production value of the site and lack of up-front prices is a little sketchy. The catalog is rather expansive, however. Thanks folks.

[cdh]

Most of my yixing has come from museum gift shops... there must be a company with big yixing stock that supplies them, because lots of them stock em... good luck tracking down who it is...

[mbhank]

Try www.Yixing.com

[andiesenji]

Contact Holy Mountain Trading Company

and see what they can do for you.

I don't have any direct knowledge of how they price when selling to retailers or restaurants, but I have purchased several tea pots from them and they have been very helpful finding special pots for me.

[Will]

Honestly, this is a tough one, and to be honest, probably the wrong place to ask. If you want to sell good, reasonably sized, and non-tacky Yixing pots at a reasonable price, you will probably need to either make some connections a little closer to the source, or go through wholesalers that probably not many people here (myself included) know of. And a lot of the people who do know may think of you as a competitor.

Believe it or not, some of the pots that Rishi sells (specifically, the ones made by 经典陶坊 -- jdart.cn) are decent clay and a decent price, though most of the ones Rishi carries are a bit on the large size.

There site is weird, and I've never purchased stuff from them, but I've heard Ok things about funalliance.com. Not sure how active they are these days, but worth checking out.

Another outside shot, but you could try Aroma in Vancouver (Canadian branch of HK's Lam Kie Yuen -- aromateahouse.com). They have some decent quality shui ping style pots in various sizes which are reasonably priced.

Whatever you do, you are wise to do at least some basic tests for product safety, and use your common sense to avoid unnatural looking colors. While I don't want to overstate the risks, there have certainly been some safety issues with some products sold as zisha (though most of the so-called zishagate story seems to have involved slow-cookers and other products, rather than teapots).

Edited February 12, 2011 by Will (log)

[Wholemeal Crank]

Yixings are a huge topic, on all the tea forums and tea blogs I've seen: strong opinions about clay qualities, mass produced vs hand made, new vs old/used/seasoned, and whether a new, inexpensive pot can possibly have anything like the same effect on tea as a well-seasoned aged pot from some particularly valuable clay source. But all the sources I've read are discussing them for personal use, retail purchases only. And without knowing if you're looking for top quality individual pots or more basic, mass produced inexpensive pots, hard to know how to direct you.

On another forum, people have been complaining about funalliance.com, seems to be defunct.

No idea if these places would be interested in wholesaling, but I've heard pleased comments about the basic pots and service from these retailers, who seem to offer some basic pots in good sizes, rather than individual boutique highly priced pots: yunnansourcing.com & dragonteahouse's ebay store. Most of the rest of the sources I've been pointed to seem to specialize in more expensive individually sold pots.

[Richard Kilgore]

Since you are talking about buying for a cafe, I assume you are talking about a fairly low price point, which brings up two potential difficulties. First, traditional Yixing of 100ml are hard to find; 150 - 200 ml easier. Second, the quality of the clay makes a substantial difference. Many lower priced Yixing are made with poor quality clay and are better used just for decoration, and my guess is that most Yixings are used for that purpose. So you have to be sure that what you buy is good for tea. I agree with Wholemeal Crank's suggestion of yunnansourcing.com. Scott has been helpful and reliable in my experience.

[Will]

Since you are talking about buying for a cafe, I assume you are talking about a fairly low price point, which brings up two potential difficulties. First, traditional Yixing of 100ml are hard to find; 150 - 200 ml easier.

I don't quite follow this point. Traditionally, many Yixing pots tend to be small, and pots of 70-120 ml are certainly common (and useful for those of us who don't drink tea in large groups often).

Edited February 13, 2011 by Will (log)

[Wholemeal Crank]

Larger pots are technically easier to make, and easier to find from most sources. I was at my chinatown teashop yesterday and didn't find a single one of the really nice little 50-60mL pots with the nice several hole straining spouts. I bought my little collection of those by ones and twos whenever they had them out on display, amidst a hundred or more pots of perhaps 100-200mL volume. I'm sure they're possible to find by wholesale, at least the inexpensive little ones I have, but again, harder to find than the larger pots.