Side-handle pot

Form#

Knob

1turned round bead (圓珠鈕), pedestal button, or carved wood/stoneware finial on the lid crown

Lid

A lid fitted to the mouth, with a vent where the design requires one.

Spout

3short curved or conical spout (短彎流 / 直流) with an internal multi-hole ceramic ball strainer (球孔 / 蜂巢孔) or flat strainer (平網孔) that keeps expanded whole oolong leaves from blocking the pour

Side handle

A ceramic, wooden or bamboo side grip, positioned approximately at a right angle to the spout.

Body

5deep globular, pear-bellied (梨腹), or drum-shaped chamber thrown in iron-bearing Taiwanese stoneware, local red clay (朱泥 / 紅土), or wood-fired clay, giving rolled leaf full vertical expansion room

Base

6turned ring foot (圈足), typically signed or stamped by the studio potter

¹²³ Numbers mark the parts described under Form.

In use#

• A slight rotation of the wrist tips the spout without lifting the elbow, making repeated short gongfu infusions onto a pot stand (壺承) or into a fair pitcher (茶盅) effortless on a dry 茶席 table.¹³
• Unlike a wide, low Japanese green-tea kyūsu designed for heat dissipation, the deeper belly and narrower mouth of a Taiwanese 側把壺 trap heat so tightly rolled hemispherical oolong leaves (球形烏龍) can unfurl completely.¹²

Working volume#

Use the volume to the intended fill level, rather than the exterior dimensions or shape name. Leave room for the leaves and lid, and choose cups or a serving pitcher that can receive a complete infusion. Two pots of the same named form may have very different working capacities.

Variants and sub-types#

A side handle describes the grip arrangement, not a single body shape. Compare a rounded or taller body with a lower, wider one; also note whether the handle is integral clay or a separately attached material. These visible differences help identify a particular work without assigning fixed brewing temperatures or a national “standard” silhouette.

History#

1. 1895–1945 (Japanese rule)Japanese kiln engineers and potters introduce climbing kilns (登窯), square kilns (四角窯), and wheel-throwing techniques to Miaoli, Nantou, and Yingge, bringing Japanese side-handled kyūsu (急須) alongside the Minnan and Chaoshan rear-handled gongfu pots already used in Taiwan.¹²
2. 1970s–1980sDuring the Taiwanese tea-art (茶藝) boom, Yingge and Nantou workshops initially focus on rear-handled Yixing-style red-clay (朱泥) pots, while ceramists and studio potters begin experimenting with local Taiwanese clays and hybrid forms.⁴⁵
3. 1990s–presentAs tea-art houses give way to curated tea-table settings (茶席) and the movement for 'Taiwanese pots for Taiwanese tea' (台灣壺泡台灣茶), Taiwanese ceramicists fuse the ergonomic wrist-turn of the Japanese side handle (側把) with the deep, thick-walled, small-mouthed chamber required to brew rolled Taiwanese oolong at 95–100 °C.¹²³⁴

Attributions are shown as the source states them.

In other traditions#

• Adapted from Japanese teapot 日Japan. Fang (2009) and Wu (2020) trace how contemporary Taiwanese ceramic teaware absorbed Japanese side-handle (yokode kyūsu, 横手急須) and katakuchi (片口) elements and reshaped them around the high-temperature gongfu brewing of Taiwanese oolong.¹²
• Parallel form Korean teapot 한Korea. Both Taiwan and Korea adapted the side-handled teapot into a deeper, rounder vessel suited to hotter steeping than Japanese steamed sencha.

Related#