“The Purple Jade Ouzhou Heart – Exhibition of Jian Kiln and Jian Ware Culture” is currently on display at the National Museum of China, featuring 135 ancient Jian ware and related artifacts. The Jian kiln, located in today's Jianyang District, Nanping City, Fujian Province, is renowned for its production of black-glazed porcelain. The Jian kiln was established during the late Tang and Five Dynasties period, prospered throughout the Song Dynasty, and primarily produced bowls, referred to as “Ouzhou” or “Zhan” in historical records, collectively known as “Jian Zhan.”
The popularity of Jian ware stemmed from the rise of Tea culture in the Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty was a period of rapid economic and cultural development in ancient China, marked by a trend towards popularization, secularization, and humanization in social life. The people of the Song Dynasty continuously refined elegant tastes from the details of daily life, placing great emphasis on spiritual pursuits and artistic expression, setting a graceful tone for future generations. The “burning incense, brewing tea, hanging paintings, and inserting flowers, four leisurely pursuits,” recorded in “Dreamy Memories of the Liang Dynasty” by Wu Zimu of the Southern Song Dynasty, exemplify the refined and leisurely lifestyle of Song literati, with tea brewing being a representative practice.
From the Five Dynasties to the early Northern Song Dynasty, the technique of brewing tea became increasingly complex. As an exquisite method of Tea drinking, tea competition originated in Jianzhou during the late Tang and Five Dynasties period, then known as “Mingzhan,” which was a competition evaluating both the quality of tea and the skills involved in tea brewing, focusing on taste, aroma, and the foam and color changes produced during the brewing process. By the Northern Song Dynasty, the custom of tea competitions in Jianzhou had become renowned nationwide.
Contemporary Jian ware pieces displayed at “The Purple Jade Ouzhou Heart – Exhibition of Jian Kiln and Jian Ware Culture.” Photo courtesy of the National Museum of China.
In the mid-Northern Song Dynasty, Cai Xiang, then the provincial commissioner of Fujian, conducted systematic investigations into the folk customs of tea competitions originating from Jianzhou and wrote the book “Tea Record.” Following this, the custom of tea competitions gradually gained acceptance in high society, first spreading among the imperial court and scholar-officials, and later permeating through the general populace. Simultaneously, Jian ware began to gain popularity, becoming a refined object perfectly paired with the custom of tea competitions.
Cai Xiang's “Tea Record” provides detailed documentation of the tea competition process, which can be generally divided into three steps: First, the tea cake is roasted over a low fire until dry, then ground into a fine powder using a pestle and mortar, and placed into a preheated tea bowl. Second, the tea paste is adjusted and hot water is added, with clear spring water boiled over charcoal poured into the tea bowl, the tea powder mixed into a thick paste, and then boiling water added in rounds with appropriate speed. Third, while adding water, the tea whisk is used to stir the tea, creating foam that adheres tightly to the rim of the bowl, a phenomenon called “biting the bowl,” and the best result is when the foam is bright white and leaves no water marks on the bowl.
During the tea competition, the evaluation of the tea foam emphasized “whiteness as the most valuable.” Compared to other tea bowls, the black-glazed Jian ware better highlights the tea's color, allowing the white foam to stand out vividly. Patterns such as hare's fur, partridge spots, and oil droplets give the tea water a bright appearance, pleasing to the eye.
The popularity of Jian ware was also closely linked to Emperor Huizong's affection for it. Emperor Huizong, who was passionate about literature and art, was also proficient in the study of tea and Jian ware, penning verses like “mother-of-pearl and precious boxes adorned with pearls and jewels, fragrant buds of Jian in glass jars. Rabbit hair brushes with bowls to brew cloud liquid, capable of enchanting red cheeks into drunkenness.” In the first year of the Dazhuan era (1107), Huizong wrote “Dazhuan Tea Treatise,” detailing classifications and functions of Jian ware. In the second year of Zhenghe era (1112), Huizong used Jian kiln rabbit hair bowls and Huisan spring water to prepare Tai Ping Jia Rui tribute tea, which he gifted to Cai Jing. In the first year of Xuanhe era (1119), Huizong personally prepared tea for his ministers, known historically as the “Emperor's Tea Offering.”
Cities, as commercial and cultural centers at the time, were the primary consumption areas for black-glazed porcelain from the Jian kiln. Jian ware was mainly discovered in coastal city sites such as Fuzhou, Quanzhou, Hangzhou, and Ningbo, primarily to meet the demand for high-end tea utensils among scholar-officials and the urban populace. Additionally, during its peak production period, Jian ware was once used in the Northern Song imperial court; artifacts with inscriptions of “For Imperial Use” or “Presented to the Palace” have been unearthed from kiln sites in Dahulu Houmen Mountain and Yuantou Pit in Jianyang, confirming the fact that Jian ware served as imperial tea ware.
The widespread dissemination of Song Dynasty tea culture across East Asia initiated the overseas export journey of Jian ware, represented by black-glazed bowls. After the flourishing maritime trade in the late Northern Song Dynasty, Jian kiln porcelain gradually entered countries and regions such as Japan and the Korean Peninsula, exerting significant influence on their local tea cultures.
Especially in Japan, Jian ware played a crucial role in the development of their tea ceremony culture. It has been verified that during the Southern Song Dynasty, Japanese monks used Jian ware produced in Jianzhou for tea drinking while studying Buddhism at Mount Tianmu in Zhejiang, later bringing it back to Japan for promotion, where it received high acclaim, becoming an important symbol of ancient Sino-Japanese cultural exchange.
Staff dressed in traditional attire demonstrating tea brewing techniques at the exhibition site. Photo courtesy of the National Museum of China.
Currently, Jian ware found in shipwrecks is limited to the Sinan wreck off the coast of Korea, the Taean Ma Island II area wreck in Korea, and the Kurosaki underwater wreck in Japan. Meanwhile, black-glazed bowls recovered from shipwrecks near Chinese waters are mostly products of the Dongzhang kiln, Cizao kiln, and Yulin Pavilion kiln, dating primarily from the mid-Southern Song Dynasty to the early Yuan Dynasty. It can be seen that due to the low point in overseas trade during the mid-Northern Song to mid-Southern Song period, as well as various factors such as the cost of firing, production volume, and consumer base of the Jian kiln itself, Jian ware was not a major export product at the time but may have been a rather rare “treasure.”
Japan was the main destination for Jian ware imports. Since the 21st century, a considerable number of Chinese ceramics, including Jian ware, have been discovered in the seabed and sites around Hakata Bay in Japan. In 1323, a merchant ship sailing from China to Hakata in Japan sank off the southwestern tip of Jeolla-do, Korea. The cargo carried both public and private goods, with over 20,000 pieces of porcelain recovered, including 68 Jian ware pieces all from the Song Dynasty. At that time, the Jian kiln had ceased firing black-glazed bowls, and these Jian ware, bowls from the Jizhou kiln, and Liu Dou jars from the Ganzhou kiln, which had been abandoned by the Yuan people, appeared on a ship bound for Japan. This is closely related to the decline of tea brewing methods and traditional wax tea in the Jiangnan region of the Yuan Dynasty, the prosperity of Zen temples in the Kamakura period of Japan, the rise of the warrior class, and the unprecedented expansion of demand for “Tang items.”
During the Song and Yuan dynasties, under the influence of Jian kiln Ceramic production techniques and product styles, a large-scale group of kilns producing black-glazed porcelain emerged, concentrated in northern and eastern Fujian, as well as Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Anhui, and other regions. Major kilns include the Yulin Pavilion kiln in Wuyishan, the Dongzhang kiln in Fuqing, the Chayang kiln in Yanping, the Xiaosong kiln in Jian'ou, the