cha hu 茶壶 teapot.
The teapot was popular in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Those Jingdezhen teapots made in late Ming were large and stately, the most prized of which were the teapots with an overhead handle (ti liang hu*) with underglaze blue or wu cai* decorations. The quantity and variety of teapots produced in Jingdezhen increased in the Qing dynasty. They were decorated with underglaze blue, with enamels of the fencai* or wucai palette, or with various monochrome glazes. They were round, cubic, oblate, lotus-pod-shaped, bamboo-stem-shaped, or chrysanthemum-flower-shaped. Some teapots of the Qianlong reign had the Emperor's poems inscribed on their finely-potted bodies. At the same time, the Yixing* kiln in Jiangsu province fired the famous zi sha* stoneware teapots.
