The Pot That Started a Program
This program started with a pot Baoputang already owned and couldn't replace. In the fall of 2016, looking at an old 朱泥君德壶 — a small zhuni Jun De pot — already in the shop's collection, the realization set in that pots with that particular character, that line and proportion, simply weren't being made anymore. The original Jun De held only 100ml, which happened to suit Baoputang's own preference for single-person tea — so the first move was commissioning a faithful remake, which became popular enough on its own to suggest there was room for more.
That became "一把好壶" — "One Good Pot" — an ongoing series built on four rules: only forms already tested for years in actual use at Baoputang, clay chosen directly rather than left to a workshop's default stock, a different pot matched to a different brewing need, and long-term relationships with the people actually making them — master craftsmen and quiet, skilled unknowns alike, judged by the work rather than the title.
This 仿鼓大扁壶 — "drum-form flat pot" — was the first release in the series, arriving in spring 2017. Where the more scholarly 石瓢 form represents a retreat into nature, the drum form is meant to evoke the opposite: striking the drum, singing while you strike it — ambition, not retreat. The clay is a decade-aged sesame duan ni, sourced from a longtime friend of the shop, 蒋先生 in Yixing, and shaped by 赵师傅, an old-school Yixing potter with steady, practiced hands. Wide-mouthed, round-bellied, clean in pour and stop — built for green tea, jasmine tea, white tea, and raw puer alike.