Recently, the Western Han Dynasty Nanyue King Museum in Guangzhou hosted an exhibition titled “Discover Yue Kiln – Shanglin Lake Yue Kiln Celadon Porcelain Exhibition.” Among the exhibits, two pieces of porcelain have attracted much attention from visitors: one is a Chicken-Headed Pot from the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and the other is a Sheep-Headed Dragon-Handled Pot from the Jin Dynasty.

The transformation from “pot” to “teapot” has been a long evolution.

“Water is the mother of Tea, and utensils are the father of tea.”

Since ancient times, Chinese people have been very particular about their tea utensils. In The Classic of Tea, Lu Yu carefully designed 24 different types of tea utensils.

We now generally refer to Tea drinking utensils as “tea sets.” However, in ancient times, there was a distinction between “utensils” and “implements” used for tea drinking.

Jin Dynasty Chicken-Headed Pot

According to the categorization in The Classic of Tea, “tea utensils” refer to tools used for making fire, brewing tea, roasting tea, grinding tea, measuring tea, dividing tea, fetching water, storing water, filtering water, holding salt, scooping salt, and Drinking Tea. On the other hand, “tea implements” refer to tools used for picking tea, steaming tea, shaping, drying, sealing, and counting.

It can be seen that the “tea implements” of the Tang Dynasty have little to do with modern tea sets, while some of the “tea utensils” mentioned in The Classic of Tea are equivalent to today's tea sets.

It wasn't until the Southern Song Dynasty that Shengan the Elder wrote The Illustrations and Descriptions of Tea Implements, where he changed the name of tea-drinking utensils, previously called “tea utensils,” to “tea sets,” a term that has been used ever since.

In the vast array of tea sets, the teapot is indispensable, used for brewing and pouring tea. Although there are over 200 different shapes of teapots, they all follow the same basic form: a pot with a spout, lid, handle, or loop handle.

Song Dynasty Pot with Handle

This shape of the teapot is something we take for granted today. However, the transformation from ancient “pots” to modern “teapots” went through a long evolutionary process.

The Chicken-Headed Pot Was Once the “Most Popular”

Obviously, the styles of these Chicken-Headed and Sheep-Headed Dragon-Handled Pots evolved from disk-mouthed pots, which were primarily used for storing water and wine, not as tea utensils. However, except for the lack of lids, their shapes are almost identical to modern teapots, so they can be considered the “ancestors” of teapots.

Someone might ask: Why did ancient people like to shape the spouts of pots like chicken heads and sheep heads? What symbolism is there behind this? This is because greenware ceramics during the Three Kingdoms, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties periods often featured animal shapes for decoration, each carrying its own special symbolism. For example, frogs and fish symbolized “proliferation”; while chickens and sheep represented “auspiciousness,” and ancient people believed that chickens possessed five virtues: literary, martial, brave, benevolent, and faithful.

Influenced by such thinking, Chicken-Headed Pots and Sheep-Headed Pots were popular for a time during the Wei-Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, Sui, and early Tang dynasties, especially Chicken-Headed Pots, which were among the most beloved and commonly used vessels.

“Zhu Zi” and “Tang Ping” Made Their Appearance During the Tang Dynasty

After the mid-Tang Dynasty, animal-shaped greenware had become a thing of the past. Replacing Chicken-Headed and Sheep-Headed Pots was a type of porcelain known as “zhu zi.”

The Tang Dynasty “zhu zi” had a flared mouth instead of a disk mouth, a shorter and thicker neck, and a taller cylindrical body. Some had handles, while others did not. The “chicken head” and “sheep head” were simplified into short tubular spouts, still located on both sides of the shoulder, making them more similar in shape to teapots.

This “zhu zi” also had another name, “pian ti,” probably because its handle was placed on one side, different from the way old pots with handles for stringing were carried.

Although the “zhu zi” resembled teapots, it was mainly used as a wine vessel rather than a tea utensil in the Tang Dynasty, capable of holding wine and pouring it into cups.

On the basis of the “zhu zi” shape, from the late Tang Dynasty onward, people developed a new tea implement called the “tang ping.”

The emergence of the “tang ping” was in response to changes in how people drank tea. People in the Tang Dynasty consumed decocted tea, somewhat akin to the pounded tea of today, mixed with food. It wasn't until after Lu Yu that the practice of “pure drinking,” adding only a little salt to the tea, became advocated.

From the Song Dynasty onward, the custom of “pointing tea” became popular. “Pointing tea” involved placing ground tea powder in a tea bowl, gradually adding boiling water, and using a tea whisk to blend it, causing the tea powder to dissolve in the boiling water and producing “flowering foam,” with whiteness and longevity being prized.

Due to the need to pour boiling water into tea bowls, the “tang ping” came into being. The “tang ping” was used for boiling water or holding boiling water, and the act of pouring boiling water into a tea bowl was referred to as “pointing.” Therefore, in The Illustrations and Descriptions of Tea Implements, Shengan the Elder named the “tang ping” as “tang ti dian.”

The early tang pings inherited the characteristic of having a short spout placed on the shoulder, with the bottle mouth often higher than the spout, making it impossible to fill the container fully and inconvenient to pour water when tilted. Later, people moved the lower ends of the spout and handle down from the shoulder to the abdomen, aligning the upper ends with the bottle mouth, and renamed it a “handled pot.”

The Term “Teapot” Officially Emerged in the Ming Dynasty

However, handled pots could be either teapots or wine pots and were not yet what we would consider modern “teapots.” True teapots emerged during the Ming Dynasty.

In the twenty-fourth year of the Hongwu era (1391 AD), Zhu Yuanzhang issued an edict abolishing compressed tea cakes and replacing them with leaf tea, thus changing “pointed tea” back to brewed tea. It was at this time that the term “teapot” officially appeared.

At the same time, the use of leaf tea distinguished Ming Dynasty teapots from earlier tang pings and handled pots. As the method of drinking tea had changed, their functions were completely different; tang pings were similar to today's kettles, while teapots were specifically used for brewing and pouring tea.

Ming Dynasty teapots were characterized by a preference for small clay or porcelain teapots. For example, Wen Zhenheng said, “Clay teapots are superior, as they do not overpower the aroma and have no cooked water smell.” Zhang Qiande said, “The nature of tea is narrow; if the teapot is too large, the aroma does not gather, a capacity of one or two sheng is sufficient.”

A small teapot has such a complex and varied historical development, revealing the depth and breadth of Chinese Tea culture.

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