ICE, funny you should mention HK street stalls for buying Yixing tea pots. I have a small collection of 12 medium-sized pots, bought from reliable stores & tea importers in the area (fortunately for me I happened on good sellers, since I was a trusting know-nothing when I bought the first 5 or 6, & sought out some good guidelines after that.) Anyway, 3 or 4 years ago a friend who knew I collected took a trip to Hong Kong with her husband & brought me back a little blue pot. It looked to my beginner eye sort of clumsily made, so I said, “Wow, thank you! A blue one, how perfect-I don’t have any blue ones!” She told me how the street stalls in one area they went to “were just full of them, & they were all only $2 or $3. I should have bought more!” I’ve never used it (in my defense, sort of, I never got round to checking it for usability) & actually I have to admit that until now I didn’t know I shouldn’t.
~H.
