Rongchang Pottery Covered Bowl.

As we all know, Chinese tea culture is extensive and profound. If you want to taste a cup of good tea, a suitable tea set is indispensable and the covered bowl is undoubtedly among the best.

Covered bowl, also known as “SanCai bowls” or “SanCai cups”, consists of three parts, lid, bowl and saucer. They symbolize different things, lid for the heaven, bowl for the mankind, and saucer for the earth, which form the harmonious unity of man, the earth and the heaven. When drinking tea, people hold bowl in one hand and the lid in the other hand. Floating the leaves in the tea soup by the lid adds a pleasure to tea drinking. The covered bowl is more practical and convenient than other tea sets. A combination of practicality and simplicity, Rongchang pottery covered bowl, with its unique clay raw materials and complex production processes, can all the more stimulate and preserve tea aroma thus adding mellowness to tongue taste.

Chongqing Rongchang, also known as the "Pearl of Western Chongqing", is a land rich in culture, which has bred Rongchang pottery, one of the four major potteries in China. Furthermore, Rongchang is the largest ceramic production base in the whole southwest region, and the pottery produced is exported to various countries and regions, so Rongchang is also one of the three major pottery capitals in China.

The clay is undoubtedly the key to the making and preservation of pottery covered bowls. As the poem goes: “Anfu is five miles long, lined with clay essence”; “In front of the mountain there are mines, behind the mountain there are charcoals, and between them, pottery pots are burned”. These two lines are the best portrayal of Anfu Town, located in Rongchang. Pottery products can be seen everywhere in the local area, and are closely related to the lives of the locals. The reason why Rongchang pottery is unique is that its clay is taken from a clay ore belt ,25 kilometers long and 2.5-4.5 kilometers wide, with an average thickness of 1.2 meters. The total reserves of clay is 110 million tons, and its colors are red and white. Clay is the best raw material for making pottery, known as "clay essence, fine in texture, strong in plasticity, low in water absorption and loss on ignition ". It is also a high-quality raw material for producing various exquisite craft pottery and does not need to add any additives. The fired pottery is characterized with no cross-flavor, no flavor change and no color bleeding, and long-term preservation of quality, flavor and freshness, while beauty coexisting with practicability. With good sealing, fast heat dissipation, pottery covered bowl is not easy to crack, and can stimulate the fragrance of tea to the greatest extent, which has won the hearts of countless tea lovers.

“Red as jujube, thin as paper, bright as mirror, resonant as chime”, this is the   high public praise directed towards Rongchang pottery. Behind this high praise, however, is the diligent practice and successive efforts of countless craftsmen. As one of intangible heritage inheritors of Rongchang pottery, Lv Jicheng, a post-90s, apart from catching the baton successfully from the old potters, combined calligraphy with pottery and made bold innovation based on inheritance, which finally injected new vitality into Rongchang pottery.

Accidentally, it was in Tik Tok live streaming that I saw Zhang Chichen, an apprentice of Master Lv, making pottery covered bowls. Platforms like these, he said, would make Rongchang pottery and his hometown readily accessible to more people. Though he is the same age as Lv, he respects Lv a lot, a mentor who impacts greatly on him. Beyond teaching him the craft of making pottery, Lv guides him to really love the lump of clay in his hands.

He recalled the days when he studied craft. As one lid of set of his parents’ wedding pottery covered bowls was missing, he went to match the lid and met his teacher Lv Jicheng. The pressure of life overwhelmed him, for he later began to learn the craft while working. An idea of giving up even flashed across his mind, but thanks to the support of his family, he regained faith and persevered till the end without hesitation. He said that what he was doing really counted. The present generation, the inheritor and successor of intangible cultural heritage, should not turn blind eyes to the achievements of old potters lost from the long river of history. If possible, he will support his descendants to inherit the craft of making covered bowl.

With the awe for art, these simple craftsmen shoulder the mission of inheriting Chinese traditional culture. Thanks to them, many skills narrowly lost in our country can be passed down among generations; thanks to them, people and the world can feel the broadness and profoundness of Chinese cultural deposits and appreciate the wisdom of Chinese ancestors. Hence, they are the heroes who brave against the wind, with each of their handiwork telling a story and every of their clay-covered hands describing the history of Rongchang Pottery.