The largest of three, for a full table
This is the biggest of Gao Liuzhou’s teapots — a size she added after regulars kept asking for something that could serve four without a second brew. Her signature gaiwans are built for solo or two-person gongfu; this pot is for the slower, more social kind of session, where the vessel sits in the middle of the table rather than in one drinker’s hand.
The extra volume changes the geometry more than the method. A wider belly holds heat longer, which matters when pouring for four rather than one, and the spout is cut at a slightly steeper angle so the last cup empties as cleanly as the first. The strainer is pulled from the same gather as the spout rather than fitted separately — fine enough to hold back whole-leaf oolong and white tea, though not fine enough for a finely broken black tea.
Each pot is hand-blown and annealed slowly over roughly twenty-four hours to survive years of near-boiling pours. Because it shares bench time with her main gaiwan work, this is the slowest-moving of her three teapot sizes to restock — a handful of pots a season rather than a standing line.