On the way to Ailao Mountain during the rainy season, we took an old asphalt road and came across a small village shrouded in mist called Jianshui Village. The pottery workshop at the village entrance caught my friend's great interest. After wandering around the village, we returned to this family workshop at the head of Jianshui Village, where we could experience pottery making. Unexpectedly, we stayed the entire afternoon, reluctant to leave. Here, we witnessed the host's ideal rural life balancing nostalgia and passion; here, nostalgia is the unfired clay, and the ideal is the fourth infusion of tea.
We entered the Taoyuanju Pottery Intangible Cultural Heritage Workshop by the roadside. The courtyard was filled with decorative pottery jars, and the first floor was a large living room displaying the host's pottery. It is said that the pottery-making technique in Dajie Town, where Jianshui Village is located, has a history of over 600 years. The clay used for traditional handmade pottery is sourced locally, characterized by high temperature resistance, good adhesion, and no chemical substances. The glaze used for handmade pottery is self-made, safer than the glaze used in electric kilns.
The hostess of the pottery workshop, Li Shuo, is a hospitable Hani woman. She told us that their family's pottery-making has a history of over 100 years. Her husband, Mr. Wang Youtao, a municipal-level intangible cultural heritage inheritor of Wang's Tugen Pottery, learned the craft from his grandfather. His father was also a renowned pottery artisan locally. Initially, they made large daily-use items like pickle jars, oil pots, and rice wine jars. Gradually, to keep up with the times, they continuously learned new techniques while preserving traditions. Teacups, teapots, and many decorative pottery pieces became their new specialties, highly favored by people.
On the hillside next to the workshop, several kilns are where they fire the pottery. A wisp of blue smoke slowly rises from the low kiln. Tonight, they will stay awake all night tending the kiln. Few know that the cups and jars fired in this kiln take a full six months from initial creation to completion. Yet many pieces that look good to us are labeled "unqualified" by the hosts and set aside for other uses. Despite the time and effort, hostess Li Shuo resolutely left Hangzhou, a big city where she studied and worked for eight years, to return to this small village in the Ailao Mountains. Together with her husband, she upholds this craft that many have abandoned, striving to pass on this intangible cultural heritage and see it go further.
Opposite the pottery workshop is a small courtyard, a tea room decorated by Li Shuo and her husband. Here, they warmly entertain friends and family, and also host strangers from all directions, telling them the history of Jianshui pottery and their own stories. In the courtyard, vigorous succulents and "unqualified" pottery pieces blend perfectly, revealing the hosts' sincere and genuine love.
The hosts are extremely discerning. Many pottery pieces we consider fine as decorations are seen as flawed in their eyes, only fit for personal use. After their own processing, novel succulent pots are born.
We sat in the semi-open tea room, and the hostess warmly served us fine tea. Each of us had two cups: one glazed with colored glaze, one with red glaze. One cup held Pu'er ripe tea, the other Yunnan black tea. "The black tea is brewed in a gaiwan to avoid stewing; stewing can make it sour and astringent, so we don't use a pot. For ripe Pu'er, we use a pot to concentrate the flavor and aroma, making it smoother," Li Shuo said, her eyes shining with confidence when talking about her hometown's tea.
"We're drinking sticky rice black tea and sticky rice ripe Pu'er, blended from Yunnan large-leaf tea and local sticky rice fragrant leaves. Besides the sweetness of traditional black tea and the smoothness of ripe Pu'er, there's a lingering sticky rice aroma. The sticky rice black tea is brewed in a gaiwan with still boiled water; even near 100°C is fine, as high heat better releases the aroma and flavor. Black tea is enjoyed for its sweet taste; the aftertaste and throat feel after sweetness are key to judging quality. This sticky rice black tea combines the tea's natural aroma with sticky rice fragrance, enriching the layers. Being large-leaf, it has a fuller taste with lasting sweetness and throat feel. The sticky rice ripe Pu'er, after post-fermentation, blends tea and sticky rice aromas more harmoniously. Ripe Pu'er is enjoyed for its smooth, sweet taste; brewing in a pot integrates the aroma into the soup, more restrained and profound compared to the gaiwan's outward release," she explained.
I've forgotten the taste of the tea that day, only remember her tirelessly refilling our cups—one black tea, one ripe Pu'er—the joy emanating from her very blood.
While we were busy chatting and tasting tea, her family had prepared a sumptuous dinner. They had originally scheduled a meal with friends, but knowing we were in a hurry, they thoughtfully prepared dinner early and invited us to join. "Just ordinary home cooking," she said modestly, but to us, this table of home-style dishes was far from ordinary: there was the freshest bamboo shoot and pumpkin soup (we saw the host holding a bamboo shoot just pulled from the ground when we first met him), local-style stir-fried wild mushrooms with cured meat, seasonal pure organic cucumbers, and a steamed egg dish with dried meat (pronounced "gansheng") that could rival luxury restaurants—we had never even heard of it.
