Jianzhan / Temmoku

Introduction:
So I’ve spent another irresponsible amount of money on tea cups. This purchase will include my 4th Jianzhan aka Temmoku style cup, which I am quite excited to test out. I don’t have it yet, and in fact, at the time of writing this it hasn’t even shipped; but I already have buyers remorse because I don’t think it will be suitable for my original intent. If you haven’t heard me say it before, a tea cup is a picture frame for tea. I bought this cup to be a frame for one of my phoenix oolong teas, but thinking about it, I don’t think I’ve ever thought of phoenix oolongs being ‘gold’ — that’s more of a jin jun mei note, sometimes dong ding. I don’t know what I was thinking (I bought it at 4:30am…) but I digress.

I was taking mental stock of the tea cups I have bought over the years. I noted that I have 3 Jianzhan style tea cups but none that are actually Jianzhan.

I’ve bought a lot of stuff from aliexpress lately, mostly clothes, but I was curious what they’re selling related to tea-ware. I was surprised with the search results, there are some legitimately great shops on there, selling pretty amazing stuff. I thought it was funny that some of the tea shops I buy odds and ends from in China were stocking some aliexpress cups for like three times the price.

Now, one must practice due diligence when ordering from any aliexpress shop. Sometimes a photo of an item and what’s sent are quite different. In my case here though, I’m not worried, I feel like… due to the kind of money moving at this level, there’s no way it won’t be legit. The seller had a great reputation too, (if the stars and reviews are to be believed). But… if I get some bullshit cup from this seller, this will be a hard lesson for me.

As I was navigating the aliexpress stores, I quickly learned that in regards to Chinese pottery, I basically don’t know anything. I want to be less ignorant, and thus I am writing this article, studying (and learning for myself) as I go. I hope you find it useful.

What is Jianzhan / Temmoku?
Jianzhan (Jian Cup) is a type of black porcelain pottery made in Jianyang, Fujian, China, about an hour South from the Wuyi mountains by car. You could say Jianzhan is a specific type of Jiàn yáo (Jian ware), because Jian yao also would cover flower vases and bowls. Jianyang Jianzhan is the original production center, and now there are similar styles made elsewhere in China and Japan.

Jianzhan was one of the 8 porcelain centres of the Song Dynasty and catered heavily to the popular style of drinking tea at the time known as diancha/motcha. Diancha has many similarities to traditional matcha in terms of preparation and requires a bowl as the drinking vessel. Japanese monks, while in China studying Buddhism, learned about these bowls and the techniques of powdered tea preparation and spread this knowledge to Japan.

Japan calls Jianzhan style cups ‘tenmoku’ in writing, but temmoku in speech because putting n and m together is awkward. The Chinese characters used in writing temmoku are heaven and eye, in reference to (Tianmu: heaven eye mountain) where the Japanese monks who first observed these Jianzhan bowls were studying Buddhism.

A Japanese monk by the name is Eisai was given a few bowls that were deemed imperfect or flawed in some way. Once he returned to Japan, (shortly after in the grand scheme of history), Mongolia conquered China ending the Song dynasty and creating the Yuan dynasty. During this time, the aristocratic style of brewing diancha was stamped out, and Jianzhan production stopped. The 4 bowls that were given to Japan in this era are the oldest Jianzhan around. The skill level of production at the time was so high that it is currently unrepeatable. These 4 bowls are called the Yohen Temmoku, yohen refers to the style, which I’ll cover in the next paragraph.

Creation Process of Jianzhan Bowls (production part 1)
There are a few types of Jianzhan pottery. They are not necessarily made differently in technique, the differences are more in the ingredients being used, and the effects created in the end.

It starts by creating a clay base, which is thrown on a potters wheel. There are a few shapes that come up frequently, but one shape seems to be the most traditional. It starts from a foot, stretches outward at a 40 degree angle or so, and at the final moments moves straight up. I’ll of course attach a photo when I put the polish on this article.

Once the potter is satisfied with the shape, it is bisque fired.

Jianzhan clay has a high iron content. To my knowledge, iron will oxidize in the kiln to red. Jinzhan clay is almost always dark/black in the result. High iron clay turns black in a reductive kiln atmosphere, thus I assume that Jianzhan goes through reduction firing. Until I read otherwise, I will believe that.

Once cooled, a glaze is applied. The glaze is the primary source of interest for Jianzhan lovers.

Creation Process of Jianzhan Glaze for Bowls (production part 2)

first we can cover ‘hares fur’ the type most prized in Japan. The hares fur effect is created in a situation when the tea bowl can be fired to a higher temperature than the glaze. During the higher temperatures of the firing process, the glaze hits its melting point and slowly drips into the bowl and down the sides, stretching the visual components of the ash glaze downwards in lines resembling ‘hares fur’. By this definition my ‘Volcanic Eruption of Spirit’ chawan is a hares fur bowl, I guess?

It seems my favorite style of Jianzhan is called Yóu dī (Oil Droplets / Oil Spots) which is when there is an abundance of iron in the glaze, which accumulates as the glaze cools, forcing the iron to ‘pool’ in spots. It would seem that my Taiwanese temmoku bowls are made in the style called ‘tea dust’ in which gold powder is added to the cooling glaze, giving a very fine, shimmering dusty appearance. Another style is called ‘tortoise shell’ — looking to me nothing like a tortoise shell, more like leopard? a black base with large bands of pooling yellow in wavy patterns (maybe I haven’t seen enough tortoises), but I almost bought a tortoise shell teapot last year not knowing what it was!

Looks like my laptop is about to run out of batteries. I’ll continue with this article another time!

Ciao