Cast Iron Production

The wonderful, pure cast iron teapots have been manufactured for centuries in an almost unchanged way. Today, we cannot say whether these items have their origin in China or Japan. Nevertheless, both products have theiradvantages. Japanese cast iron teapots are very elaborate, almost designer items of utmost quality, whereas items from China are less expensive.

The material used for these teapots has many favourable characteristics: cast iron keeps hot for a very long time and a warmer is hardly necessary even though it surely strengthens the visual aspect. Production The production has remained the same for centuries and is very labour intensive.

It essentially takes place via the following steps:

Step 1: At first, experienced craftsmen form an aluminium mould, which has the same shape as the teapot to be  reated. This mould is called “Kodate” in Japanese and is also known as outer mould. For the inside of the teapot a second mould is made. This mould is made from sand. It is called “Nakago” in Japanese, als  known as inner mould.

Step 2: Liquid iron is now poured between the empty space of the inner (Nakago) and the outer (Kodate) mould. After about 2–3 minutes, the sand mould is removed by hand.After a short cooling period, liquid enamel is poured inside
the teapot.

Step 3: The piece is then heated up again, to guarantee an even distribution of the enamel inside the teapot.

Step 4: Following a further heating process, the outer surface is painted with a special lacquer, which is traditionally black. However, nowadays, wonderful red, green and blue lacquers are also being used.

Step 5: Finally, the teapot is annealed a further two times. After a cooling down period, it is rubbed by hand with a special treatment.

The lid experiences the same intensive work process.