--- title: 'Rongchang pottery and other clay centers' url: 'https://howtotea.me/teaware/materials/chinese-ceramics/rongchang' markdown: 'https://howtotea.me/teaware/materials/chinese-ceramics/rongchang.md' lang: en date: '2026-10-25' description: 'Rongchang pottery, made from the red and white clays of Chongqing, plus the ware of Pingding, Tongguan, Shiwan and Zibo and the rock-ore teapots of Taiwan.' --- # Rongchang pottery and other clay centers 荣昌陶 Editors · October 25, 2026 · 10 min read Rongchang in Chongqing makes ware from red and white local clay with no additives, fires it at 1130–1250 °C and counts among the “Four Famous Potteries” of China. Teapots are a recent product there. Beyond Rongchang there are several other clay centers, each with a very different history. ![Rongchang red clay teapot with white swirls and a cup with a marbled jiaoni band](https://howtotea.me/images/c/o/v/e/r/cover-c2560d1a.webp) Illustration 荣昌陶 Rongchang and others róng chāng táo Made in: Chongqing, Rongchang district, Anfu area Clay: red (Fe 5.2–5.5%) and white (Fe 2–2.2%) Firing: 1150–1200 °C red, 1150–1250 °C white Status: national intangible heritage, 2011 Origin mark: geographical indication, 2014 Workshops: 145 handmade and 33 factories, 2025 Ask a Chinese tea drinker where famous clay ware comes from and the answer starts with Yixing, then Jianshui and Qinzhou. Fourth on the list is Rongchang, the one least known outside China. It lies on the western edge of Chongqing, along the Yayu ridge, where Jurassic shale runs in red and white bands. For centuries local potters made bowls, pots and jars for pickled vegetables there. Teapots came later. ## Red and white clay from Yayushan The body is local sedimentary shale. The red clay fires to an ochre red, the white to ivory. Potters add nothing and use the clay “as is.” Red clay contains 5.2–5.5% iron, white 2–2.2%. Another analysis gives Fe₂O₃ of 7.44% and 1.2%, so the numbers depend on the sample and the method. By one account the clay belt along the ridge is 15 km long and 2.5–4.5 km wide; by another it runs 25 km, with reserves of about 110 million tons. White clay is fired at 1150–1250 °C and red at 1150–1200 °C, while a raw-material supplier’s catalog lists 1130–1180 °C for some grades. Texts disagree on the number of operations, too: “more than 20,” 24 and “up to 70.” That supplier splits Rongchang clay into six grades. The most common are a “cinnabar red” from 4 m down (fired at about 1140 °C, shrinkage about 5%) and a “purple refined” from 7 m, the main body for the wheel. For the Hehuan teapot it recommends 70% of the first and 30% of the second, ground to 40 mesh. The catalog comes from a supplier, not a lab, so its “beneficial zinc and selenium” should not be taken as fact. ## What they make and how to recognize it Rongchang ware comes in two kinds. 泥精货 níjīng huò is unglazed and prized for the natural color of the clay. 釉子货 yòuzi huò is glazed, and the local cinnabar, “western green” and black glazes were famous. Teapots and cups are usually left unglazed, while glaze goes on decorative pieces and pickle jars. Tea ware is typically decorated with carving into the red clay with white inlay, or made of 绞泥, where red and white bodies are twisted together on the wheel and the pattern stays in the wall. A local saying sums up the ideal: “red as a jujube, thin as paper, bright as a mirror, ringing as a stone chime.” A clear ring when you tap a piece means a well-sintered body, and any buyer can check it. [Wood firing](https://howtotea.me/science/material-and-firing/kilns-and-firing) leaves an uneven tone, which comes with the technique. The young potters Guan Yongshuang and Li Yunshan developed more than 20 ash glazes from pine needles, banana leaves, ginkgo and chestnut husks. Sources list Liang Xiancai, a national-level bearer of the tradition, among the key masters. The Four Famous Potteries The story that the Ministry of Light Industry named Yixing, Qinzhou, Jianshui and Rongchang the “four famous” at a 1953 exhibition in Beijing is repeated everywhere. Nobody has produced the original document. Another district propaganda text calls Rongchang “one of the ten famous potteries.” Treat the list as a commonplace, not a regulation. ## From the Song to a “ceramic capital” The national register dates Rongchang pottery to the Song, “more than 800 years ago.” District texts push it back to the Han, over 2,000 years, citing Han lamps and figurines in the pottery museum. Excavations at Liujia Gongqiao found Song kilns spread over about 2 km² and more than 300 intact pieces from the Song to the Qing. The county took the name Rongchang in 1374. According to its genealogy, the Xiao family of potters moved from Hubei in 1663 and settled by Yayu in 1665. Mass production of thin carved ware with colored glazes began under the Xianfeng and Guangxu emperors. The district dates the 11-chamber stepped Sixing kiln to 1879, while other local sources say it was built in 1802 and repaired in 1876. It ran until the 2008 earthquake or, by another account, until 2002. After 1949 the workshops were merged into factories, and by the end of the 1980s the craft had declined. The revival came in steps: 2011, the national intangible heritage list (an extension of the entry “Pottery firing techniques”); 28 March 2014, geographical indication status; 2018, the craft-revitalization list; 2020, the title “ceramic capital of western China.” After 1949 the pickle jar became the symbol of the place, and the gate of the tourist town of Antao is built in its shape. By 2025 the district counted 218 bearers of the tradition and 145 handmade workshops, plus 33 industrial factories, mostly making liquor jars. ## The Rongchang teapot: what is known and what is not Less is known about this ware than about [Chaozhou shoula](https://howtotea.me/teaware/materials/chinese-ceramics/shoula), [Jianshui](https://howtotea.me/teaware/materials/chinese-ceramics/jianshui) or [Qinzhou nixing](https://howtotea.me/teaware/materials/chinese-ceramics/nixing). The sources describe no Rongchang seasoning method. Nor do they report tests of Rongchang teapots with different types of tea, or independent measurements of porosity and [water absorption](https://howtotea.me/science/material-and-firing/teaware-materials). They give only firing temperatures and shrinkage figures from the clay supplier’s catalog. A red body with 5.2–5.5% iron fired at 1130–1200 °C is close in composition to other unglazed red clays of southern China. Treat it as an ordinary red clay and do not expect it to behave like [Yixing zisha](https://howtotea.me/teaware/brewing-vessels/yixing). Claims such as “tea in a Rongchang pot does not spoil for seven days” come from a potter’s newspaper interview and have no measurements behind them. To pick handmade ware over a souvenir, look for a thin wall, a ring when tapped, and white inlay on red or 绞泥. Since 2014 a geographical indication has protected the name “Rongchang pottery.” All food ware in China falls under GB 4806.4-2016: a small hollow vessel (teapots count) may release no more than 2.0 mg/L of [lead](https://howtotea.me/teaware/care-and-collecting/teaware-safety) and 0.30 mg/L of cadmium, a cup 0.5 and 0.25 mg/L. ## Pingding, Tongguan, Shiwan, Zibo China has several more clay centers where tea is not the main business. They are worth knowing, because their ware turns up on the market, and so does talk about it. **Pingding (Shanxi).** The local ware is black, glossy from carbon smoking, and called sandware (砂器 shāqì). Potters dig the clay near coal seams, weather it for over a year and tread it barefoot. They fire it in a vertical pit kiln, then move the glowing piece into a closed smoke pit. Most of it is kitchen and apothecary ware: pots, jars, vessels for decoctions. Local tradition ranks Pingding pots, zisha and Guangdong clay kettles as the “three firsts” and claims Pingding pots boil water without scale, though no measurements back that up. Under the geographical-indication rules, water absorption must be 8–12% and a piece must survive a drop from 400 to 20 °C. **Tongguan (Changsha kilns, Hunan).** A large Tang producer of gray-green ware with underglaze painting and inscribed poems. Bowls inscribed “bowl for tea” and “tea bowl of Yuelu Monastery” settled historians’ doubts: these kilns did make tea ware. Dated inscriptions run from 810 to 929. The kilns also turned out bowl stands, kettles, tea mortars and mills. **Shiwan (Guangdong).** The kilns near Foshan are known for figurines and miniatures, and for their guilds: by the late Qing there were 24, among them a teapot guild and a tea-kettle guild. The Palace Museum holds 82 Shiwan pieces, sent to court from 1743 at the latest. The ware is fired in a “dragon” kiln, with three different levels of heat at the top, middle and bottom. **Zibo (Shandong).** Zibo is known for its “tea dust” (茶叶末釉) and “raindrop” (雨点釉) glazes. Sources date the raindrop glaze differently, to the Jin or the Song. Both glazes were lost under the Yuan. Chen Xilin revived tea dust in 1910 and Hou Xianghui raindrop after experiments from 1920, and steady production dates from 1959. ## Taiwan: rock-ore teapots After the earthquake of 21 September 1999, potters in central Taiwan began mixing crushed rock exposed by the landslides into their clay: chlorite, shale, andesite, serpentinite. The first such teapots went on show in Taipei on 10 December 2003. Deng Dingsou and Gu Chuanzi are named among the founders. The Lin Rongguo workshop makes its “old rock clay” (老岩泥) by blending mineral sand of 20–60 mesh into clay. Quartz and mica do not melt at 1250 °C, so the body stays porous. It is fired three times, at 1250, 1260 and 1270 °C, and each firing makes it denser and higher in pitch when tapped. The maker recommends a porous single-fired body for heavily roasted [oolongs](https://howtotea.me/teas/oolong), [Dian Hong](https://howtotea.me/teas/black/dian-hong) and puer, and a dense one for young sheng and light Tieguanyin. No proven benefit from the rock Measurements by Taiwanese chemists do not support the idea that a rock-ore pot “softens water.” In it, water hardness rose slightly, and dissolved oxygen, [caffeine](https://howtotea.me/science/chemistry/caffeine), catechins and theanine were lower than in a glass pot. Talk of “beneficial minerals” comes from advertising. Yingge, in the north of the island, is a separate story: it is the center of Taiwanese ceramics. Its history is traced to 1804 and the potter Wu An from Fujian, but the museum itself notes that names and dates differ, and one thesis puts Wu An’s final settlement at Jianshanpu in 1853. From the 1960s Yingge overtook Beitou, gas kilns made the ware cheaper and more consistent, and in the 2000s the trade shifted toward tourism and studio pottery. ## Handling There is no Rongchang method, so the usual practice for unglazed clay, described for Qinzhou ware, applies. Wash a new pot and soak it in clean water for three to four days, changing the water daily. Then put the body and lid in a clean pan that has never held food, cover them with water, bring it to a boil and let it cool on its own. After each session rinse the pot with clean water, with no detergent or grease, and dry it with the lid off. Keep one pot for one tea, since an open body absorbs smells. Avoid sudden temperature changes: no tolerance figures have been measured for Rongchang, Taiwanese or Shiwan ware. For general rules see [teaware care](https://howtotea.me/teaware/care-and-collecting/care), and for brewing routines, [gongfu cha](https://howtotea.me/brewing/methods/gongfu-cha). ## Common questions What are the “Four Famous Potteries” of China? Yixing zisha, Jianshui, Qinzhou and Rongchang pottery. The title is usually said to date from a folk-craft exhibition in Beijing in 1953, but no ministry document has been found. Other lineups exist, and some sources put Shiwan in place of Qinzhou. Can I brew tea in Rongchang ware? Yes, if it is unglazed and made for food use, which in China means meeting the GB 4806.4-2016 standard. But Rongchang teapots have only been sold since the 21st century, and the sources describe no seasoning method and no tests with different teas. Treat them like any unglazed clay and keep one pot for one type of tea. Does a rock-ore teapot improve the water? No. Taiwanese chemists compared one with a glass pot: water hardness rose, dissolved oxygen fell, and the liquor had less caffeine, catechins and theanine. The composition changes, but the measurements showed no benefit. --- ## Navigation - Parent: [Chinese ceramics and porcelain](https://howtotea.me/teaware/materials/chinese-ceramics.md) - Previous: [Qinzhou Nixing pottery](https://howtotea.me/teaware/materials/chinese-ceramics/nixing.md) - Next: [Yue and Longquan celadons](https://howtotea.me/teaware/materials/chinese-ceramics/qingci.md)