Bunshudo tetsubin, Japan

This kettle is 4" high, minus the lid and handle, x 7" in diameter, minus the spout. Probably a liter kettle and weighs around 5 lbs, so very thick iron. It has the Bunshudo mark under the spout. Dirty outside, with some chipping and rust to the Arare finish, a bit rusty inside, with several rust spots, and had some carbon buildup on the bottom from apparently limited use.

A Goodwill find today for a bit under $7. When I first saw it, I thought to myself, "Ah, a large, crappy Chinese teapot! I am in no danger. I can walk on by." I said to myself, "Well, I will just take a look inside and see if the cheap, crappy Chinese infuser is in it. Just curious. No way this is coming home with me". I unwrap the tape holding it together, lift the lid and "Horror! There is no lining! There is no hole in the lid! The handle does not move! It is a kettle!". There is still a chance it is Chinese, though I have never seen a Chinese kettle and never seen a finial this fine on a Chinese pot. My last chance to walk away is evaporating, I turn it over and...... "Oh no, it has a Bunshudo mark! I am lost!" Helpless to resist, I add a seventh kettle to my collection.

It is a perfectly functional kettle, but I am a bit disappointed in the finish quality as Bunshudo is one of the better kilns, as least I have some seen some fine work by them. The quality issue is a pretty ugly grind around the edge of the kettle where the mold line was ground down. On the finest kettles, this grind is smoothed and any sign of grinding is removed. There are grind marks on this kettle. Other than that, it is a nice kettle. On the other hand, a lot of effort was expended to remove the marks of the sprue on the bottom and the quality of the mold was very fine. The sprue is nearly invisible if you do not know what to look for.

I have nothing at this house to do a proper cleaning and conditioning, not even any tea, so I gave it a quick bath in soapy water, a thorough scrub with a plastic/sponge pad and set it on my butane stove to dry. That cleaned it up fairly well, even the rust inside, but I will need to get some green tea to boil inside to seal it.

My guess is that this kettle was used very little and just not properly dried after use. I justify my acquisition because I believe that this is the only Japanese kettle that I have ever seen "in the wild" and the only Bunshudo piece of any kind. It was probably otherwise destined to sit on a woodstove as a humidifier until it rusted away.

Update: Image 4 contains an inset image of the cleaned and restored kettle.