5 stores · curated ORBIS register
Shanghai / China
For more than two decades, Madame Mao's Dowry has collected Mao-era design pieces - propaganda posters, ceramics, mirrors - displaying them alongside contemporary Chinese designers' work at its Julu Lu studio. The gallery sells through its studio and a dedicated online shop page.
Best for Antiques, Design gallery, Mao-era collectibles
Beiliu, Yulin, Guangxi
One of China's largest makers of daily-use porcelain, this Beiliu institution produces dinnerware and household porcelain. Its wares ship worldwide from a city known as a national ceramics capital.
Best for Daily-use porcelain and ceramic dinnerware
Qianshan Anshan / China
Jian Zhan Shop, run from Jinglan Pottery Studio in Anshan, hand-throws and wood-fires tenmoku tea bowls and teapots at around 1300°C, reviving the Song Dynasty Jianzhan glazing tradition from Jianyang, Fujian.
Best for Handmade Jianzhan tenmoku tea bowls wood-fired at around 1300°C
Jian Zhan Shop trades out of Tiedong District Jinglan Pottery Studio in Anshan, Liaoning, a ten-person workshop established in 2022 to make and sell Jianzhan — the tenmoku-glazed tea vessels that trace back to Jianyang, Fujian, during the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD), where they were prized enough to be favored by emperors and Zen monks for their oil-spot and hare's-fur glaze patterns. The studio follows the traditional process: high-quality iron-rich clay is thrown on the wheel, then fired — sometimes multiple times — in wood-burning kilns reaching around 1300°C, where a controlled reduction atmosphere reacts with the iron in the clay to produce the glaze's distinctive shifting luster. The studio works with recognized master artisans who carry techniques passed down through generations, and pieces are inspected individually, since kiln variation means no two bowls come out with identical glaze patterns even from the same firing. The stated aim is to bridge an eight-century-old form with a contemporary market — bringing genuine Jianzhan teacups, teapots and tea bowls to tea drinkers outside China rather than mass-produced imitations of the glaze effect. Pieces ship internationally from the Anshan studio, priced from roughly $51 to $185 AUD, each one a one-of-a-kind result of its own firing.
Jianshui, Honghe, Yunnan
PorSva makes Jianshui zitao (purple pottery) teaware from the five-coloured clay of Wucai Mountain in Wanyao Village, Yunnan — hand-carved teapots, gaiwan, tea sets, cups and canisters produced in a centuries-old artisan tradition.
Best for Teapots, gaiwan and tea sets — thrown from the five-colour clay
PorSva works in Jianshui zitao, the purple-clay pottery tradition centered on Wanyao Village, a short walk from Jianshui's city center in southeastern Yunnan. The raw material is the area's distinctive "five-coloured soil" — red, yellow, cyan, purple and white clays dug from Wucai (Five Colours) Mountain — and the craft is old enough, and localized enough, to be counted among China's Four Great Pottery traditions. Large-scale industrial production never really reached Jianshui, which is part of why the hand methods have survived largely intact.
The workshop's output centers on tea equipment: wheel-thrown, hand-trimmed teapots in traditional and wood-fired finishes, carved gaiwan, coordinated tea sets, individual teacups from 60 to 130ml, and storage canisters, alongside larger steam pots and lidded mugs. Decoration leans on relief and inlay carving — lotus, peony and plum-blossom motifs, and the yin-carved, yang-filled technique distinctive to the region — with wood-fired pieces left showing natural ash textures from the kiln.
Because the clay itself is porous and mineral-rich, it's prized in Chinese tea culture for how it interacts with tea over repeated use, in the same functional, collectible category as Yixing zisha — making PorSva's pieces as much a long-term tea tool as a decorative object.
Kunming tea market
Yunnan Craft, based in Kunming, sells sheng and shu pu-erh from mountains like Yiwu Shan and Menghai alongside wood-fired Jianshui purple-clay teapots, Yixing and Nixing pottery, and porcelain, ceramic or glass gaiwan sets.
Best for Yunnan Craft, based in Kunming
Yunnan Craft sells out of Kunming, splitting its catalog between pu-erh tea and the regional pottery traditionally used to brew and age it. The tea side covers both sheng (raw) and shu (fermented) pu-erh, named to specific mountains such as Yiwu Shan and Menghai, offered as both single-origin sheng and blended sheng puer, with additional white and black teas and lots specifically labeled from wild tea trees or old arbor plantations rather than cultivated bushes - a distinction that matters to pu-erh drinkers tracking tree age and growing style. On the pottery side, the shop stocks hand-thrown Jianshui purple-clay teapots finished with wood-firing, alongside Yixing and Nixing wares, plus gaiwan in porcelain, ceramic and glass with matching cup sets - three different clay and material traditions rather than a single house style. A smaller line of traditional Chinese medicine herbs sits alongside the tea and teaware, extending the shop's regional-sourcing model past tea specifically. The business runs as a direct online retailer with multi-currency pricing in USD and CNY and international shipping, putting it in the same category as other Kunming-based exporters selling Yunnan pu-erh and Jianshui-area ceramics straight to buyers outside China rather than through a domestic-only shop.
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