With tea consumption in the U.S. having more than doubled since 1990, according to Bon Appetit magazine, holi-day shopping lists this year might do well to include something delectable or decorative for the tea drinker. Contrary to the stereotype of tea drinkers as stogy, pipe-smoking Anglophiles, tea has become a mainstream beverage, considered good for one’s health, conducive to social interaction and complementary to the rising popularity of Yoga and Feng Shui. An artistic twist on the trend comes in the form of whimsical teapots and tea sets, notes Peggy Boskey founder of the website Teapot Treasures .
“Taking tea is one of life’s creature comforts, a time to sit and sip alone or relax and chat with a group of friends,” says Boskey. “And nothing enhances the experience of fine-tasting tea as much as a teapot hand crafted by an artist. In my pursuit to find unique teapots for my own collection, I discovered the creations of some wonderfully talented artisans. It was then that I decided to put together a large selection of contemporary ceramic, cast iron and china teapots to delight the eye along with the palate.”
Besides teapots and tea sets, Teapot Treasures offers additional suggestions for the tea lovers on one’s holiday list:
    — Ceramic tiles designed to protect a wooden table from a hot teapot
 – Body Tea - herbal tea for the bath & eyes
 – Children’s tea sets
 ”Buyers of our one-of-a-kind teapots signed by the artist and recreations of ancient Chinese Yixing teapots don’t necessarily even drink tea,” adds Peggy Boskey. “They appreciate the fine craftsmanship and collect them as affordable works of art.”

From the Air China logo to the icon that twisted the Olympic rings into the image of a man doing taiji, Han Meilin’s visions are everywhere.
Now the famed, versatile and prolific artist who created some of the country’s most recognizable imagery will stage China’s largest-ever one-man art show at the China National Art Museum.
Han, in fact, will take over every exhibition hall to display more than 3,000 new pieces from December 31 through January 13.
His last solo event, a 1999 exhibition, lured more than 50,000 viewers, he predicts this one will be even bigger and more successful.
He didn’t even know if he will be alive to see it. Han, 65, is recovering from a major heart attack and bypass sur-gery earlier this year.
The artist says he still possesses the creative enthusiasm of a young man and his prime has yet to occur.
The works in show were created over the past two years by him and his assistants and students. They span a vast range of formats that include painting, calligraphy, sculpture, pottery, wax printing, grass weaving, bull skin tapestry, red sandalwood carving, bronze weaponry and clothwork tigers.
The display’s highlights include a series of calligraphic work called “Heavenly Characters,” bronzeware sculptures such as “Little Animals,” ink paintings of nudes, Junci porcelain works and Yixing-style purple clay teapots.
Junci is the oldest and one of the most important styles in Chinese porcelain art. Yixing teapot is an art from East China’s Jiangsu Province.
Many of the works weren’t made inside a Beijing studio but out in the countryside.
“I don’t like creating artistic works ‘behind closed doors,’” Han said.
Han led his 20-member group - including seven students - across China on a 30,000-kilometre mini-bus trek through eight provinces. They sought inspiration from local folk arts.
Viewers will be amazed by the range of Han’s versatility. “If an artist wants to keep developing, he should master different artistic genres - not only calligraphy, sculpture or wax printing but also music and literature,” he said.
A 1960 graduate of the Central Academy of Arts and Design, Han certainly takes his own advice.
In 1980, learning that no Chinese was invited to attend the international seminar on China’s porcelain kilns system held in New York, Han made dozens of trips to the five major porcelain kilns in China to acquire porcelain-making skills.
Now colossal sculptures designed by Han can be seen in many Chinese cities.
His granite sculpture of six tigers now stands in Dalian, a port city of Northeast China’s Liaoning Province. It is more than 43 metre long and weighs 4,800 tons.
His “Five-Dragon Clock Tower” ranked No 1 in the International Sculpture Competition organized by the Interna-tional Olympic Committee and the Atlanta Olympic Committee in 1996. It is now a permanent fixture in Atlanta’s Olympic Square.
Han’s creations are well-known even by those who don’t realize whose they are. He designed the much sought-after stamp for the Year of the Monkey in 1983 and the 1985 Panda stamp. The red phoenix logo for Air China and the taiji logo for the Beijing 2008 Olympics bid campaign also comes partly from his fertile mind. (The bid logo was co-created by designer Chen Shaohua.) Han has held several personal art exhibitions since 1979 in cities such as Beijing, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Taipei, New York, Boston, Toronto, Singapore and Paris. New York City even honoured him by designating one day of his exhibit there, October 10, 1990, as the Han Meilin Day.
“I believe that Chinese artists can create work at the highest level if we can perfectly integrate indigenous art with contemporary concepts,” the artist said.
Han hopes his work appeals to ordinary people, not critics. Critics look at art pieces from the academic viewpoint and don’t take much interest in folk art elements, he griped.
Indeed, Han worries greatly about the future of Chinese folk arts.
“The market for traditional Chinese handicrafts keeps shrinking and many factories are facing bankruptcy,” he said.
Many traditional art works need a lot of handiwork, including lacquerware, wax printing, tie-dye and grass weaving articles.
But high prices for handmade products have scared away ordinary Chinese people. The old-fashioned designs of the traditional handicrafts don’t interest foreigners, either.
This is why Han is expanding beyond making his own art into an effort to rescue Chinese folk arts. He offers free training around the country in the technical aspects of these crafts.
His art studios, too, are efforts to impart wisdom. He opened his first in eastern Beijing in 1989, and now has sev-eral that include sites in Henan and Shanxi provinces and one in Shenzhen.
“My studios are far from enough to save folk art,” said Han, calling on more Chinese artists to join him in the cul-tural mission.
Han has drawn from his own life experience in his artistic career. During the “culture revolution” (1966-76), Han was forced to leave his post as a lecturer at his alma mater and to take up a job at a pottery workshop in East China’s Anhui Province. There, he suffered distress, imprisonment, insult, poverty, illness and separation from his family.
“Life with hardship is not always a bad thing for artists,” Han said, calmly recalling those nightmarish years. “The hard times in my life made my will power strong and served as a major motivation for my ceaseless artistic creation.” During his frequent journeys to rural areas across the country, Han, shocked by the vast rural poverty, began to donate schoolbags and sets of stationary to children there.

ZishaTeapot.co.uk is a leading online retailer of quality Zisha Teapots and tea accessories. We were established in 2006 in the city of Yixing China. The people at ZishaTeapot.co.uk are dedicated to providing our customers with a complete China Teapots experience. Along with our fine selections of Chinese Zisha Teapots, we also offer elegant tea sets and beautiful teacups. Not only will we offer a wonderful selection at a great value, but we also strive to educate on the many health benefits of tea and Chinese tea culture.

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 17 (Bernama) — For the first time, the world will get to see the treasures salvaged from 10 ships, which sank in the 14th to the 16th centuries as well as the 19th century, at the Malaysian Archaeological Ex-hibition at Muzium Negara starting Nov 15.
Museums and Antiquities Department Director-General Datuk Kamarul Baharin Buyong said today the ships in-volved included the Risdam, Nassau, Diana, Flor De La Mar, Nan Hai and Desaru.
The year-long exhibition would give a full chonology of the ceramics recovered from the ships, he told a media conference here.
He said research on the ships which sank in 1370, 1380, 1400, 1460, 1540 and 1550 had shed new light on the ce-ramic trade in Southeast Asia in the pre-colonial era.
He said ships that sank in the 17th to 19th centuries did not carry a lot of procelain but data and artefacts salvaged were important in understanding more about the trade route in the region then.
Kamarul hoped that the exhibition would stoke the interest of both the locals and foreigners in archaeology.
On the discovery of a 19th century ship south of Desaru in May, he said the artecacts in the ship would be recorded this year and next, after which the ship would be raised from its resting place 20m under the sea.
He said the significance of this discovery by Nanhai Marine Archaeology Sdn Bhd would be investigated and mapped together by museum personnel, which would provide a platform for transfer of technology in maritime arc-haeology, a fairly new venture in Malaysia.
He said the department had taken several measures to ensure the safety and authenticity of this shipwreck and the site would be proposed to be declared an archaeological site and any unauthorised diving activities would be prohibited.
Nanhai Marine Archaeology Sdn Bhd managing director Sten Sjostrand said the ceramics on board the ship were mainly Chinese blue and white porcelain, made for the Southest Asian markets.
The ship’s location in the deep muddy bottom had protected and kept the pottery in pristine condition despite its age, he said.
The ceramic samples recovered so far included blue and white porcelain dishes and plates from the Jingdezhen kilns in China, famous for fine quality porcelain.
Other valuable objects salvaged are teapots from the Yixing, which is known for the manufacture of the best quality teapots until today. The stamp in the base of some Yixing teapots indicate a manufacturing period of 1821-1850.
There are also pots made during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
So far about 645 pieces of ceramic have been taken out from the surface of the ship since early June.
“A piece of hull plank taken from the ship, which is about 30m in length and 7m in width, shows that it was made from cedar and pine (that does not grow in Southeast Asia) indicating that the ship was built in China,” Sjostrand said.
He said that as no similar ship from this period had ever been reported, the ship’s remains and construction details were of the greatest importance for charting shipbuilding techniques prevailing in Asia around the 19th century. $137:Newswire

For the first time, the world will get to see the treasures salvaged from 10 ships, which sank in the 14th to the 16th centuries as well as the 19th century, at the Malaysian Archaeological Exhibition at Muzium Negara starting Nov 15. Museums and Antiquities Department Director-General Datuk Kamarul Baharin Buyong said today the ships in-volved included the Risdam, Nassau, Diana, Flor De La Mar, Nan Hai and Desaru. The year-long exhibition would give a full chonology of the ceramics recovered from the ships, he told a media conference here.  He said research on the ships which sank in 1370, 1380, 1400, 1460, 1540 and 1550 had shed new light on the ce-ramic trade in Southeast Asia in the pre-colonial era. He said ships that sank in the 17th to 19th centuries did not carry a lot of procelain but data and artefacts salvaged were important in understanding more about the trade route in the region then. Kamarul hoped that the exhibition would stoke the interest of both the locals and foreigners in archaeology. On the discovery of a 19th century ship south of Desaru in May, he said the artecacts in the ship would be recorded this year and next, after which the ship would be raised from its resting place 20m under the sea. He said the significance of this discovery by Nanhai Marine Archaeology Sdn Bhd would be investigated and mapped together by museum personnel, which would provide a platform for transfer of technology in maritime arc-haeology, a fairly new venture in Malaysia. He said the department had taken several measures to ensure the safety and authenticity of this shipwreck and the site would be proposed to be declared an archaeological site and any unauthorised diving activities would be prohibited. Nanhai Marine Archaeology Sdn Bhd managing director Sten Sjostrand said the ceramics on board the ship were mainly Chinese blue and white porcelain, made for the Southest Asian markets. The ship’s location in the deep muddy bottom had protected and kept the pottery in pristine condition despite its age, he said. The ceramic samples recovered so far included blue and white porcelain dishes and plates from the Jingdezhen kilns in China, famous for fine quality porcelain. Other valuable objects salvaged are teapots from the Yixing, which is known for the manufacture of the best quality teapots until today. The stamp in the base of some Yixing teapots indicate a manufacturing period of 1821-1850. There are also pots made during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). So far about 645 pieces of ceramic have been taken out from the surface of the ship since early June. “A piece of hull plank taken from the ship, which is about 30m in length and 7m in width, shows that it was made from cedar and pine (that does not grow in Southeast Asia) indicating that the ship was built in China,” Sjostrand said. He said that as no similar ship from this period had ever been reported, the ship’s remains and construction details were of the greatest importance for charting shipbuilding techniques prevailing in Asia around the 19th century.

Fambios knows her stuff; much of her information comes from a slew of books on the subject (see sidebar), which can be ordered through your local bookstore or via Web sites. Most stores, from the larger ones like Chapters and Indi-go to the smaller neighbourhood vendors, generally have sections on collectibles.
Second-hand shops, like S.W. Welch on St. Laurent Blvd., also have books on collectibles you can buy for far less money.
For Fambios, the artistic teapots are more valuable than the fun, contemporary ones. “I’ve really started appreciat-ing the art involved in a great deal of them,” she said. “I’ve got some from Russia that were made by artists and are purely decorative. If you spend time examining their detailed work, you really fall in love with them.”
She stressed that people collect for different reasons. “If you’re doing it for fun, you don’t really look at the price tag, because you’re not looking to increase your investment. If, on the other hand, you do collect for the investment value, you tend to buy more conservatively.”
Whatever the reason, yixing teapot collecting can be a fun, and even profitable, hobby for people of all ages and incomes. And let’s not forget that most are functional, too. Tea, anyone?
For Teapot Initiates
Collector’s Club
- Cardew Design North America Inc., P.O. Box 8208, Paducah, KY., United States 42002-8208. Or call their New Jersey office at (877) 922-7339.
Books
- Teapots: The Collector’s Guide, by Tina M. Carter. Book Sales Incorporated, 1998
- Design Icons: The Teapot, by Guy Julier Aurum Press, 1999
- China Teapots, Pottery and Porcelain (Antique Collector’s Pocket Guides) by Pauline Agius. Parkwest Publica-tions, 1997
- The Eccentric Teapot: Four Hundred Years of Invention, by Garth Clark. Abbeville Press Incorporated, 1996
Web Sites
- The Teapottery for British collectibles: www.teapottery. co.uk/index.htm
- Yixing Teapot site for lovely, collectible and functional teapots from China: www.yixing.com
- Hall China Collecting site devoted to the Hall China Company’s famous teapots and other products, sold since 1903: www. inter-services.com/HallChina/
- The Tea Zone, site of the Tea Council of Canada for everything you’ve always wanted to know about tea: www.tea.ca/
- For a lovely line of Russian teapots and other porcelain items (the site partly under construction), try: www.gzhel.com/
Local Stores
A few of the stores in the Montreal area that sell collectible teapots:
- The Linen Chest has a nice selection of limited editions, including the popular Fitz and Floyd line. Stores in Centre Rockland, Promenades de la Cathedrale, Galeries Laval and Place Portobello in Brossard.
- The Shayne Gallery for one-of-a-kind teapots designed by Canadian artists, 5471 Royalmount, T.M.R., (514) 739-1701
- The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Gift Shop, 1379 Sherbrooke St. W. (514) 285-1600.
- Rob McIntosh outlets also carry such collectible teapots as Fitz and Floyd as well as a Russian line called Lomo-nosov. They have a location at 2335 Trans Canada, Pointe Claire, (514) 697-4885. They have their warehouse outlet in Lancaster, Ont.

ZishaTeapot.co.uk is a leading online retailer of quality Zisha Teapots and tea accessories. We were established in 2006 in the city of Yixing China. The people at ZishaTeapot.co.uk are dedicated to providing our customers with a complete China Teapots experience. Along with our fine selections of Chinese Zisha Teapots, we also offer elegant tea sets and beautiful teacups. Not only will we offer a wonderful selection at a great value, but we also strive to educate on the many health benefits of tea and Chinese tea culture.

LIKE the drinking of tea, collecting yixing teapots can become an addiction. But it is a popular one among those who consider a few pieces of fine art, or even fine craftwork, to be an asset in any investment portfolio.
While the debate about whether or not art is an investment goes on with no conclusion, serious buyers continue to bid high prices at Sotheby’s and Christie’s auctions. Others haunt galleries, while the would-be art collectors scour mar-kets for a piece to get them started.
And while it is, admittedly, more difficult to dissolve artwork into cash than it is with gold or diamonds, art has a value which is difficult to define in dollars.
Art, like any commodity, has a value depending on who wants to buy and who wants to sell.
While it may not always be useful in the same way as commodities coffee and rice, or practical as in platinum or diamonds, or even find an equal exchange as in the money markets (”your Picasso will never equal my Monet”), it will be as keenly monitored and carefully guarded as any asset in the world of high finance.
The value of most commodities reflects their rarity, the need for them, or the ease with which they can be traded.
Art, though, has a special place. Does any broker or investor love his blue chip stock, appreciate looking at his government bonds or enjoy showing off his forex account to dinner guests in the same way the art collector draws at-tention to his original Van Gogh hanging on the wall?
As Mr Charles Garnett, sales and marketing manager for Altfield Interiors, points out, the benefit of investing in art is double-edged.
It has both aesthetic appeal and intelligently chosen pieces can return high yields.
“In other words, one of the criteria for buying a painting, or a piece of ceramic, should be that you like it,” said Mr Garnett.
Like any investment, every piece of art carries the risk that someone else might not be prepared to pay more than you paid for it.
Of all assets, art is personal and in the eye of the beholder. To buy strictly for investment is a trap.
And, even having chosen a piece which is original or at least beautiful, there is no guarantee that he will not fall out of love with it as fashions and interior decoration changes. This is where perspective - buying objectively - comes into the equation.
And a collector should not expect that a painting will simply appreciate.
“If you are buying a piece expecting a return in less than five years, you will most likely be disappointed,” said Mr Garnett.
But art is as prone to fluctuations in market availability and demand as any commodity. The death of an artist can, overnight, turn valuable paintings into priceless museum pieces.
And when one collector hordes a collection, a decision to sell it in its entirety rather than as separate work can send the value escalating.
So, there is the theory. In practice, art is affordable to the common man.  With no talk of minimum amounts of US$ 1 million required to start an “artfolio”, it is both a pleasurable and lucrative means of investment.
And, according to Mr Garnett, just $ 10,000 is enough to put you in the picture.
Mr Garnett’s favourite choice is in Chinese and Tibetan collectables for the obvious reason that, in Hongkong, people are on the doorstep to a treasure house of such works.
“You could say such pieces are undervalued,” said Mr Garnett.
“And interest in collecting Chinese artworks is spreading as the Chinese population disperses throughout Canada and the United States, concentrating in New York, San Francisco and Vancouver.”
What will $ 10,000 buy?
A painting from popular contemporary Chinese artist, Je Hegen, entitled Portrait of a Bai Woman could be had for $ 4,700. Works from Shanghainese artist Yong Ping, which were selling for around $ 5,500 three years ago, now fetch $ 9,000.
Similarly, a painting by 22-year-old Wu Yang could be hanging on your wall for $ 5,500 and gaining in value.
These were the artists favoured by Mr Garnett and could be found in the J R Guttinger gallery in Central and Zeestone gallery in Exchange Square.
Other low-priced purchases include tsampa bowls from Tibet. These burwood and silver bowls, used for mixing butter, tea and barley, vary in price, depending on how ornate they are, from $ 2,500 up to $ 9,000.
Ironically, perhaps, the value to the Tibetans is not in the silver, but in the wood which is a rarer commodity in their country.
But buying art, as with any equity, is not for the uninitiated. Mr Garnett warns that reproduction bowls are pro-duced in Nepal and it is difficult to spot the authentic from the fake tsampa , although those from Nepal tended to be newer.
But, Mr Garnett added, galleries such as Zeestone, Plum Blossoms, Altfield and Teresa Coleman, where such ar-tefacts could be found, would not be guilty of selling these reproductions.
He said the value increased depending on whether the silver was the rarer carved silver or moulded.
And what about those teapots?
According to Ms Mee Seen-loong of Sotheby’s, with $ 10,000 and a lot of patience, a collector could secure sev-eral fine examples of Yixing teapots.
The town of Yixing is in the small county of Jiangsu and, of the 50,000 population, 13,000 are engaged in the manufacture of ceramics.
Yixing teapots are made from three basic clays of the dozen in the area. They are zisha (purple), banshanlu (light brown) and zhusha (red).
These teapots date back to the Ming dynasty and the most valuable are those which bear the mark or painting of the potter.
The number of teapots made in the Ming Dynasty was small and the workmanship demanded by an elite clientele was high. Almost every item was a masterpiece and, today, represents a potted history of tea-making in Chinese as well as an attractive investment.

ZishaTeapot.co.uk is a leading online retailer of quality Yixing Teapots and tea accessories. We were established in 2006 in the city of Yixing Zisha teapots China. The people at ZishaTeapot.co.uk are dedicated to providing our customers with a complete China Teapots experience. Along with our fine selections of Zisha Teapots, we also offer elegant tea sets and beautiful teacups. Not only will we offer a wonderful selection at a great value,
but we also strive to educate on the many health benefits of tea and Chinese tea culture.

Ah, the charm of a small city! There are many cities this size in China, but many are nondescript and do not possess  distinctive features. Yixing, in East China’s Jiangsu Province, suffers from the opposite headache: It has so many  resources it can use to promote tourism and it is sometimes at a loss what to highlight.
For most Chinese, Yixing is synonymous with zisha teapots, the dark brown, unglazed and small-sized ware pop-ular among tea aficionados. “Zisha” literally means “purple clay“, which is the raw material for the namesake pottery and is available only in the Yixing vicinity.
You don’t have to like tea to enjoy Yixing, though, and you don’t have to splurge thousands of yuan on a pot to pour tea from. As a matter of fact, zisha teapots have evolved from mainly functional to predominantly decorative or even artistic, and the really unique ones have become collector’s items and indeed are pricey.
A walk down the main street in Dingshu, a small town in the southern suburb of Yixing, is like a journey into a zi-sha pottery paradise. There are 1,000-plus workshops in this “capital of pottery”, employing some 30,000 people. Here, pottery-making goes back 7,000 years and the current kind of zisha ware first appeared in the Song Dynasty (960-1279).
It is all made possible by the special zisha clay endowed by Mother Nature. “You can imitate our craftsmanship,  but you cannot reproduce the clay,” says one zisha maker. The preparation of the clay and the sculpting has remained the same throughout centuries, but there is only one kiln still in working condition.
Called “dragon kiln”, it goes up a slope, with evenly placed holes on both sides of a hump, that resemble the scales of a dragon. However, kilns require special firewood and can be polluting. They have been replaced by electric stoves, which make it easier to control the temperature and yield better-quality ware, and lessen the burden on labor and the environment.
Teapots go with tea, and Yixing tea is a hidden secret. It is around here that Lu Yu (AD 733-804) of the Tang Dy-nasty (AD 618-907) wrote his Tea Bible. Yet, a statue of Lu stands forlornly by the roadside, in front of a vast rolling meadow of tea shrubbery.
“Though accounting for 40 percent of tea production in Jiangsu Province, Yixing tea does not figure prominently  in the local economy,” says a guide.
Even when you totally ignore the tea and teapot, Yixing is a wonderful weekend getaway for busy city slickers. It is  situated on the northwest side of Taihu Lake, roughly at the center of a radius that links Nanjing, Wuxi, Suzhou, of Jiangsu Province, Shanghai, and Hangzhou of Zhejiang Province, one of the economic hotspots in the nation.
According to the Chinese, water adds sparkle to a place. In addition to being upstream of the famous lake, Yixing has three expanses of water so unique that a special word was coined to describe it. “Jiu” refers to something smaller than a lake but larger than a river.
A 4.5-sq-km jiu has been turned into the diamond of a downtown park. Residents stroll around the meticulously landscaped gardens, exquisite pavilions and across a dozen singularly shaped bridges. And at night buildings along the lake are tastefully lit, exuding an aura of fairyland.
This is not the only mammoth urban park. The other two lagoons are also being developed. The 5.5-sq-km Dragon Ridge Forest Park offers a perfect combination of natural habitat, multiple museums and a playground, with a newly rebuilt 108m pagoda to boot.
As the old saying goes, kind people prefer mountains and wise ones adore water. Yixing has both. Its mountains are covered with bamboo forests and conceal caves of rock formations. Shanjuan, the best known of the 80-something caves, has cavernous halls which look like a giant movie set.
It is rare for a place of 2,000 sq km and 1 million people, including suburbs, to have so much delight for both resi-dents and visitors. The capital of pottery, the town on waterways, home to southern elegance, the birthplace of thou-sands of the nation’s top educators Above all, it offers poetic tranquility tucked away, yet so close to the boisterous boomtowns of the Yangtze River Delta.

yan'an, once china's revolutionary mecca in northwest china's shaanxi province, has produced high-quality pottery that sells well across the country.  the area is rich in a special earth called 'zisha' that contains a variety of rare miner-als and makes good pottery. experts say that yan'an pottery is as good as pottery produced in yixing in east china's jiangsu province. yixing zisha pottery is reputed to be the best in china.  so far, more than 100 kinds of earthenware including teapots, wine vessels, smoking vessels and construction materials, have been produced in local pottery facto-ries.  officials said that yan'an pottery products are selling well in more than 20 provinces and municipalities in china. businessmen from hong kong, macao and taiwan have also come to order the products.  yan'an was where mao zedong and his army were based in the '30s and '40s. however, due to its remoteness from cities and bad natural conditions, it remained relatively poor for the past four decades.