Hello everyone, I'm Zisha Country Man
Historically, Yixing mainly produced daily-use pottery. The area is rich in clay resources. White clay is the primary raw material for firing ceramic casseroles and Jun (decorated coarse) pottery, while armored clay (jia ni) is used for making coarse pottery, daily-use ceramics, and architectural tiles. Zisha clay itself is meticulously selected from the raw materials used for daily pottery. Without large-scale clay mining operations, it would be nearly impossible to extract zisha independently. In fact, much of what is now called "zisha ore" actually consists of clay originally meant for making daily pottery, mixed with clay from other provinces. Through modern clay-refining techniques, it is indeed possible to produce zisha clay; however, compared to truly high-quality authentic local (benshan) zisha ore, there is still a noticeable gap.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Japanese groups visited the Yixing Zisha Craft Factory several times for study and exchange. They took samples of Yixing zisha clay back to Japan, analyzed them physically and chemically, and then formulated their own version of zisha clay based on its mineral composition and chemical makeup. They even made teapots from it. Although these pots look no different from the outside, their performance is not the same. The reason lies in the physical properties of the clay from different regions. Clay from different areas has different mineral compositions; even if the chemical composition is replicated almost identically, the exact same firing performance cannot be achieved.
From this history, we can understand why people say zisha ore is scarce, yet there is an abundance of it on the market. The very concept of "zisha" has been constantly changing—from the early belief that only local clay qualified as zisha ore, to later claims that clay from every province counts as zisha. Arguing about this is actually meaningless. What really matters is the quality of the clay itself. Don't be misled by names, places of origin, or stories. In the end, what we compare is the excellence of the clay, not the story behind it.