Pan Hu Yixing teapot

14 فبراير 2025

Why is it called Pan hu?

Pan is a family surname.
According to the "Yangxian Sand Pot Illustrated Record"《阳羡砂壶图考》, Pan Shicheng 潘仕成, whose courtesy name was Deyu 德畬, was a native of Panyu 番禺, Guangdong during the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty. His ancestors started out as salt merchants and were promoted to the position of salt transport envoy of Guangdong and Guangxi.

As the Pan family was fond of drinking tea, they ordered a special purple clay pot in Yixing, one for their own use and the other for gifts. The purple clay pots ordered by the Pan family were of a fixed shape, and they were accustomed to putting the seal on the edge of the lid, but not on the bottom of the pot or other places. The seals used were all positive seal characters "Pan"「潘」. As the Pan family was famous, people called this type of purple clay pot "Pan Pot"[潘壶].

Pan pots are generally used by people in southern Fujian to brew Gongfu tea. However, according to local villagers, Pan Shicheng's ancestral home is in Putian. Because they are proud of the Pan family, they must give a Pan pot as a dowry when their daughter gets married, hoping that she can be like Pan Shicheng in her husband's family and live a prosperous life. Therefore, they often ask for Yixing purple clay Pan pots, and rarely use local Chaoshan pots.

Several types of pan pot shapes

Pan Shicheng's ancestral home is Putian 蒲田 , Fujian. The habit of drinking tea with a small red clay pot should originate from this. Therefore, all authentic Pan pots designed and customized by Pan Shi cheng 潘仕成 should be small red clay purple clay pots! Generally, there are three types, namely high Pan, low Pan, and medium Pan.
The pot-belly is flat persimmon-shaped, called "low Pan"矮潘; the body is slightly higher, close to a flat sphere, called "medium Pan"中潘, and the body is taller, close to a pear shape, called "high Pan"高潘.