From the same bench as the gaiwan
Sandry built the Handan series around a single question — if a 90ml gaiwan is the standard for one drinker at a Chinese table, what fairness pitcher actually matches it for two. Most off-the-shelf gōng dào bēi sit at 250–300ml, which leaves the second pour cooling against too much empty wall. 200ml is the answer for a two-person session, and it took finding the right bench to make one that holds its shape.
The bench is the Liu Shenyang family workshop outside Handan, Hebei — three generations of borosilicate work, originally for laboratory glass, now split between lab contracts and a small tea-ware line. Sandry visited in late 2024 after Hinson flagged that the gaiwan partner he was using in the sommelier program kept cracking on thermal shock. The Liu shop pulls each body in one piece, draws the side handle from the same gather, and anneals slowly enough that the wall tension is even from spout to base.
Procurement notes from Sandry — the rejection rate on this run was around 18%. Anything with a visible seam at the handle root, any bubble larger than 0.5mm in the pour path, anything where the spout dribbled on the water test went back. What ships is what passed the pour test twice, cold and hot.
Sold individually here, but designed to be bought with the matching gaiwan and a cha hai cup.