--- title: 'Dehua and Chinese white porcelain' url: 'https://howtotea.me/teaware/materials/chinese-ceramics/dehua' markdown: 'https://howtotea.me/teaware/materials/chinese-ceramics/dehua.md' lang: en date: '2026-10-25' description: 'Dehua blanc de Chine, the Xing and Ding kilns, Liling: how they differ, why white shows the liquor, and how to pick a Dehua gaiwan without buying glass.' --- # Dehua and Chinese white porcelain 德化白瓷 Editors · October 25, 2026 · 9 min read Dehua in Fujian has made white porcelain since the Ming, from a body with under 0.35% iron oxide and a warm ivory tone. The white line is older, going back to the Tang Xing kiln and the Song Ding kiln. Today Dehua turns out [gaiwans](https://howtotea.me/teaware/brewing-vessels/gaiwan) and cups. ![Two thin white porcelain cups, one with pale tea](https://howtotea.me/images/c/o/v/e/r/cover-0d4011d2.webp) Illustration 德化白瓷 Dehua white porcelain dé huà bái cí Made in: Dehua, Fujian Fe₂O₃ in the body: 0.18–0.35% (Ming); standard: 0.3% max Firing: 1250–1280 °C Tone: ivory, lard white, onion-root white Status: national intangible heritage, 2006 UNESCO kilns: Quanzhou, 2021 Lu Yu wrote that tea looks red in a white bowl and green in a green one. The color of the bowl changes how the tea looks, and on white you see the liquor most clearly. China's best-known white porcelain comes from Dehua, a county in southern Fujian. The road there was a long one. ## The northern white line: Xing and Ding The Xing kilns lie in Neiqiu and Lincheng counties in Hebei. Potters there began making white ware in the Northern Dynasties and reached their peak in the Tang, though the production sites were not located until 1980–1981. The Tang scholar Li Zhao wrote that bowls from Neiqiu were used by rich and poor alike. Xing ware has turned up on the Belitung shipwreck and in Iraq. Its white often has a blue cast, and some pieces are not fully vitrified, though Chinese classification still counts them as porcelain. In the *Classic of Tea*, Lu Yu ranks Xing below [Yue ware](https://howtotea.me/teaware/materials/chinese-ceramics/qingci): "Xing is like silver, Yue like jade... Xing is white and the tea in it looks red; Yue is green and the tea in it looks green." The common belief that he preferred white bowls gets it backwards. He argues against those who put Xing first and gives three reasons. There is more on the dispute under [Tang tea whisking](https://howtotea.me/traditions/china/history/tang-jiancha). The Ding kiln at Quyang (Hebei) ran from the Tang to the Yuan and was at its best in the 11th century. Early Ding imitated Xing, then displaced it in the Song. The switch from wood to coal, probably in the 10th century, gave Ding its famous ivory tone; [wood-fired](https://howtotea.me/science/material-and-firing/kilns-and-firing) Ding was bluish. Between 1086 and 1127 potters began firing bowls upside down. This method, fushao, saved fuel and let them stack ware in stepped saggars. The unglazed rim was bound with a strip of copper, sometimes gold or silver. The British Museum labels such a bowl stoneware, but Chinese classification has no in-between category, so in China it counts as porcelain. After the court fled south in the 1120s, Jingdezhen took the lead, and by the end of the Song it had eclipsed Ding. Fine Ding porcelain was lost by the Yuan. Revival began in 1975, and in 1996 an expert panel found that the technology had reached the level of Song Ding. In 2008 "Ding porcelain firing technique" entered the national heritage list, with Chen Wenzeng (1954–2016) as its official bearer. ## Dehua: what is inside the body Dehua potters were making ceramics by the 10th century, mostly celadon at first, then qingbai and white porcelain in the Song and Yuan, much of it shipped abroad by sea. Song and Yuan pieces have been raised from the Nanhai I and Huaguangjiao I wrecks. From the Ming on, white porcelain was the main product, peaking in the late Ming and early Qing, the 17th century. The secret is clean raw material. Ming Dehua bodies contain only 0.18–0.35% Fe₂O₃, and the body holds as much potassium as the glaze, or more. With so much glassy phase, the body is translucent. A broken edge has a pearly sheen, and local potters call it a "glutinous-rice body" (糯米胎). The glaze is thin, 0.1–0.2 mm, applied by dipping and fired at 1250–1280 °C. The soft, pure clay is poor for large forms but superb for small ones. Pieces up to 10 cm are modeled by hand; larger or more complex ones are molded or slip cast. That is why Dehua made incense burners, Guanyin figures and writing implements as well as cups. The best-known master is He Chaozong, and the V&A dates his Guanyin figure to 1580–1650. ## Color depends on the kiln Dehua white comes in more than one shade. In Ming chambered dragon kilns the glaze picked up Fe³⁺ and the white drifted toward a warm yellow: ivory (象牙白) or lard white (猪油白). Around the Ming–Qing transition, stepped kilns took over, the atmosphere turned reducing, and a bluish onion-root white (葱根白) appeared. The pinkish "child red" (孩儿红) was a matter of chance, depending on where a piece stood in a wood-fired kiln. Sources disagree here. The account above, linking tone to atmosphere, is the National Museum of China's. An English-language overview holds that the low iron allowed firing in oxidation, whereas Jingdezhen porcelain had to be fired in reduction to avoid a straw tint. A 2026 exhibition in Hainan claims the opposite: all three Ming colors came from stepped kilns with a carefully held reducing flame. What matters for a cup is that body and kiln set the tone of the white, not a pigment, so two "white" gaiwans can look quite different in the hand. What "Dehua" on a label means Under GB/T 21998-2008 only porcelain made from kaolin mined in Dehua county may carry the name, with at most 0.3% Fe₂O₃ and 0.1% TiO₂ in the body. The standard sets four grades: top, first, second and passable. Amendment No. 1 was issued in January 2025. ## Dehua in Europe and Japan The first Chinese porcelain in Europe, as the story goes, was a qingbai jar from Dehua now in St Mark's in Venice. A common account says Marco Polo brought it in 1295. An article in the Palace Museum journal goes further and claims he visited Dehua, but this has not been checked against the text of his *Book*. Augustus the Strong collected over a thousand Dehua pieces, and Böttger, working for him, produced the first European white porcelain. Meissen, Saint-Cloud and Chelsea copied Dehua shapes, and the best Meissen copies of the 1720s are hard to tell from the Chinese. In China, Dehua cups with wine inscriptions held wine; in Europe they went on display or were filled with candied fruit. Wine jugs served Europeans as [teapots](https://howtotea.me/teaware/by-region/europe-and-russia/european-teapots) until custom tea services came into fashion in the mid-18th century. In Japan Dehua white was called "white Korea" (白高麗, hakugorai), and Dehua potters made kyusu and sencha ware for export to the islands. ## Dehua today and other white porcelains In 2006 "Dehua porcelain firing technique" entered the first national intangible heritage list, and in 2021 the Weilin-Neiban and Qudougong kilns became part of the UNESCO site "Quanzhou." More than 180 kiln sites from the Song to the present have been found. After 1949 Dehua developed the bodies behind today's gaiwans and cups: - **Jianbai** (建白瓷), from 1963: a revival of ivory white, with a greasy luster and high translucency. It is fired in oxidation. - **Gaobai** (高白瓷): whiteness 88.1 as measured in 1958, "goose-feather white." - **Mutton-fat jade** and **ice jade** porcelain: low in iron, high in potassium and silica; ice jade has added quartz and more transparent walls. Expensive gaiwans are made from both. Liling in Hunan took another path. Potters there have made underglaze polychrome porcelain since 1908: they paint oxides on biscuit fired at 800 °C, glaze it, then give it a glost firing at 1350–1410 °C. The colors contain no [lead](https://howtotea.me/teaware/care-and-collecting/teaware-safety) or cadmium, and the glaze seals the painting. Bone china from Tangshan and Zibo, with at least 36% calcium phosphate in the body, shows up at the tea table as cup-and-saucer sets and services; the sources gathered here include no brewing reports for it. ## A white gaiwan on the table A white glazed [gaiwan](https://howtotea.me/teaware/brewing-vessels/gaiwan) is prized for tasting: the color of the liquor shows on white, and the translucent walls of "jade porcelain" light it from behind. Sellers say this porcelain does not pick up flavors and suits anything from young sheng [pu-erh](https://howtotea.me/teas/dark/puer) to aromatic [oolongs](https://howtotea.me/teas/oolong) such as [dancong](https://howtotea.me/teas/oolong/feng-huang-dan-cong). White ware is not neutral, though. One forum member brewed a dancong in same-shape gaiwans from Jingdezhen and Dehua and noticed a clear difference in aroma, with the [Jingdezhen porcelain](https://howtotea.me/teaware/materials/chinese-ceramics/jingdezhen) coming out brighter. In practice, one buyer used 4–5 g of dancong or sheng pu-erh in a 130 ml Dehua gaiwan (about 90 ml under the lid). With a heavy 46 g lid, the gaiwan empties in 3–4 seconds. For temperatures and times by tea type, see [gongfu cha](https://howtotea.me/brewing/methods/gongfu-cha). Professional evaluation follows a different scheme under [GB/T 23776](https://howtotea.me/science/evaluation/shenping): a 150 ml white porcelain cup, 3 g of leaf, boiling water, 5 minutes; for oolong, a 110 ml gaiwan, 5 g and three infusions of 2, 3 and 5 minutes. ### How to choose - **Volume.** Listings say 130 ml; buyers measured 100 and 140. Check with water. - **Glass or porcelain.** Look for the unglazed foot ring and listen to how it rings. - **[Water absorption](https://howtotea.me/science/material-and-firing/teaware-materials).** Fine porcelain absorbs 0.5% at most, ordinary porcelain up to 1%, stoneware up to 5%. Eggshell ware (薄胎瓷) for small pieces is under 0.8 mm thick. - **Safety.** For cups, GB 4806.4-2016 allows lead migration up to 0.5 mg/L and cadmium up to 0.25 mg/L (4% acetic acid, 22 °C, 24 h).[1](#fn:1) - **Old Dehua.** Ming, Qing and modern pieces are hard to tell apart, since makers repeated the same models for centuries. ### Care Warm the gaiwan with hot water before brewing, and do not move it straight from boiling water to cold. Wash it by hand in warm water, with no abrasives on the glaze. For reference, bone china under GB/T 13522-2024 must survive one thermal shock from 160 to 20 °C. Beyond that, the usual rules of [teaware care](https://howtotea.me/teaware/care-and-collecting/care) apply. ## Common questions What is blanc de Chine? The European name for Dehua white porcelain, "white from China." It has a warm ivory or milky tone, and the clay takes fine modeling well, so Dehua shipped out figures and incense burners as readily as tableware. How does a Dehua gaiwan differ from a Jingdezhen one? In body and tone. Dehua clay is low in iron and fires to a warm white; Jingdezhen porcelain looks colder and brighter. One tea forum member brewed a dancong in two gaiwans of similar shape and found the Jingdezhen one brighter in aroma. That is one person's report, not a measurement. How can I tell "jade porcelain" from glass? Check the foot and listen. Porcelain has an unglazed foot ring and rings clearly when you flick the rim. If a piece sold as translucent has thick, heavy walls, be wary: glass is sometimes sold under that name. Notes 1. Limits for cups and small hollow ware under GB 4806.4-2016, as summarized in the CIRS standards overview: [cirs-testing.com](https://www.cirs-testing.com/en/ceramic-control-requirements-worldwide-broadcast). 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