Short Stuff: All About Porcelain

What exactly is this durable ceramic anyway? See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:09Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to Short Stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and it's just us, but it's Short Stuff. And Chuck, this is the last episode of 2025.

• 1:21Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 1:22Josh Clark?

  And that's it. That's all I had to say about that.

• 1:25Speaker 03

  All right, well, let's talk porcelain because porcelain isn't something I really knew much about.

• 1:30Josh Clark?

  Me either.

• 1:31Speaker 03

  Until I did this research and porcelain, as it turns out, you might know this, you might not, is a type of ceramic. It's a subset of ceramics.

• 1:38Josh Clark?

  What?

• 1:39Speaker 03

  They are both made of clay and they're both kiln fired, but porcelain clay is, has a much higher density and it's fired longer and at higher temperatures. And thusly is much more durable, has very high performance characteristics. And it's, you know, porcelain is that, that super hard mixing bowl that you got from your grandmother that like, you can't break, well, you can't break them, but just super hardy, super dense, non-porous clay like material.

• 2:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I guess I haven't had much experience with porcelain because I always thought of it as very delicate and highly breakable, but apparently that's not true. And once I thought about it a little bit, it's like, actually I have lifetime experience with porcelain in the form of a toilet. But I hadn't really thought about that.

• 2:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, toilets, yeah, they don't break.

• 2:32Josh Clark?

  Try it. You can't do it.

• 2:35Josh Clark?

  So there's three things that show up in any kind of porcelain. And it's all natural. That's one of the big attractions of porcelain, too. It's clay, quartz, and feldspar, which is a kind of rocket that can form from all sorts of different stuff. And there's all sorts of other stuff you can throw in. But depending on the kind of porcelain that you come up with, it's basically dependent on the materials you use, the raw materials, and then how high a temperature and how long you fire it for in the kiln. Those are the big variables that produce different kinds of porcelain. But probably the most common material that's used is called kaolin, which is a kind of clay that's almost white. And this is like the big money porcelain clay.

• 3:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, and that's usually going to be like that mixing bowl, like tableware is usually that kaolin.

• 3:23Speaker 03

  Very, very fine particle size.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  It's super durable, like we were talking about, and not permeable by any liquid. Just try it again. And, you know, when we're talking firing temperatures,

• 3:37Speaker 03

  we'll get to a couple of different kinds of porcelain, but it can go up to 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit, about 1260 Celsius. And it kind of just depends on the, what you're making it for. Like, is it a toilet, or is it a mixing bowl, or is it fine china?

• 3:51Josh Clark?

  And one other thing about porcelain, too, that I hadn't realized is that some kinds of it are translucent. And I was like, wait, that means kind of see-through. And I looked up pictures of it, and yes, you can hold porcelain up to a light, like in your hand, and you can see the silhouette of your hand on the other side of it. Did you know that?

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, because I've worked with porcelain tile where you can do that. A lot of times floor tile can be porcelain. But this all originated in China about 2,000 years ago during the Tang Dynasty. But it wasn't like the porcelain we know. It was basically like, hey, we put out our fire and they discovered this really hard, unbroken, solid pieces of stuff. And that was just rudimentary porcelain. Later in the Yuan Dynasty, it was about 700, 800 years later, is when they really developed the porcelain as we know it. The porcelain that Marco Polo found and brought back to Europe and they were just went wild for this stuff.

• 4:47Josh Clark?

  They did and the market for porcelain opened up pretty quickly because trade routes were open thanks to Marco Polo, but the Europeans could not figure out how their Chinese friends were making this stuff. So all of the porcelain coming into Europe was foreign made, made in China. And that's why a lot of porcelain tableware is called China, because it was kind of like the, like champagne is the sparkling wine, China was the porcelain, right? And it took them quite a couple hundred years, I think, before they finally cracked the code. And it was an alchemist who figured out how to make porcelain by basically reverse engineering a piece that he had from China.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, a German alchemist, Johann Friedrich Bruchke. And he figured it out. This was in, I guess, the 18th century and by the latter half of the 18th century in the 1770s, they found that cowlin clay in Cornwall, England. And so the Brits were like, we can start making this stuff finally. We've got the, we got the good stuff right here in Cornwall.

• 5:54Josh Clark?

  Is it cowlin, like Shaolin?

• 5:57Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 5:58Josh Clark?

  I like how you said it.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Well, how'd you say it?

• 6:00Josh Clark?

  Caolin?

• 6:01Speaker 03

  Caolin?

• 6:02Josh Clark?

  A reject?

• 6:03Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 6:04Josh Clark?

  So yeah, so the Brits are like, great, we can put all this together thanks to Bruchke and Cornwall and start making our own porcelain. And I'm not quite sure, I get the impression that China made its porcelain one of two ways. And the way that they mostly made their porcelain was through hard paste. And that, the other one is soft paste and it has to do with the density of the, the raw materials you're using and then how high a temperature you fire it at and for how long, like I was talking about before. These are basically the two types, two main categories of porcelain.

• 6:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think you're right. I think the Europeans use that soft paste a little more. So it's a little more prone to chipping. It's a little grainier, just not as hardy overall. And then you got to glaze this stuff after you fire it. But the glazing, I thought, you know, because I didn't know anything about this stuff. I thought the glazing might be kind of the final key to make it impermeable to liquids.

• 7:02Josh Clark?

  Me too.

• 7:03Speaker 03

  But really has nothing to do with it. It's already impermeable. The glazing is just decorative.

• 7:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's impermeable because it vitrifies. So like the glass-like materials become glass in it. So it's like kind of glassy, really good porcelain is.

• 7:20Josh Clark?

  So I say Chuck, we take a little break and come back and talk some more about porcelain. What do you think?

• 7:25Speaker 03

  Let's do it.

• 7:37Josh Clark?

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• 7:47Speaker 03

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• 8:00Josh Clark?

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• 8:15Speaker 03

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• 8:40Speaker 03

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• 8:47Josh Clark?

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• 9:06Josh Clark?

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• 9:55Josh Clark?

  Chuck, I'd like to share something that I learned in our Dolls episode that I didn't have a chance to fit in, but now I do, because it seems like all of our episodes are now interlocking for some reason. But unglazed porcelain is called bisque. Bisque.

• 10:11Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 10:11Josh Clark?

  That was it?

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Like B-I-S-Q-U-E?

• 10:13Josh Clark?

  Exactly, like tomato, shrimp.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  Lobster.

• 10:17Josh Clark?

  Lobster, that's the money one, sure.

• 10:20Speaker 03

  Although a lot of the times that stuff's langostino, you know?

• 10:23Josh Clark?

  I didn't know that.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, if you go to like a really high-priced seafood restaurant, it'll be a real lobster, but that lango is a pretty good sub.

• 10:31Josh Clark?

  Is that a rock lobster, langostino?

• 10:34Speaker 03

  No, I think it's just like a little tiny...

• 10:38Speaker 03

  A little tiny guy.

• 10:39Josh Clark?

  Tastes like chicken.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  I mean, it looks like lobster meat, but it's their little, you know, it's like a shrimp size.

• 10:45Josh Clark?

  Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, I've seen those before.

• 10:48Speaker 03

  I've never seen a Langastina though, now that you mention it, I've never looked that up.

• 10:52Josh Clark?

  I think that's what.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  See what the creature looks like.

• 10:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I'd like to see that too. I've only seen it dead. I think that's what grabs everyone's faces in Beetlejuice during the calypso I've seen.

• 11:02Speaker 03

  All right. Well, I mentioned earlier before the break about porcelain tile. It's very hardy tile for flooring or the wall. But if you're cutting porcelain tile, you're probably going to need a tile saw. We've talked about wet saws before. They're wet because they are moving at such high speeds and drawing so much heat that the water cools off that blade. And there's a couple of ways you can actually form that tile. If it's up to like four feet by four feet. You basically have a special mold, but anything bigger than that and you're compacting it like just pressing layers and layers of ceramic powder until you get your desired size.

• 11:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, with a big old machine, right?

• 11:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:48Josh Clark?

  So there's a few reasons that people prize porcelain. For one, it can be really, really valuable, as we'll see. But also, like I said, it's an all natural material, like a lot of the glazed colors that they use in glazing are like cobalt, iron oxide, copper.

• 12:06Josh Clark?

  The raw materials are things like clay and feldspar. It's really easy to clean, as you know, with a toilet. Very resistant to mold and bacterial growth, as you know, with a toilet. It's water resistant, you know, like a toilet is. It's good for foot traffic, like a toilet, and it doesn't emit harmful substances.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  Like a toilet.

• 12:29Josh Clark?

  It can also be recycled, but that is a real niche. I guess, method or technique, like you can't just throw porcelain into your single stream recycling can.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:41Josh Clark?

  You have to go seek out somebody who recycles it, but the very fact that it's recyclable gives it kind of promise for the future as we get better and better at creating a circular economy.

• 12:51Speaker 03

  That's right. You mentioned how valuable it can be. The world auction record for Chinese porcelain was set about, I don't know, in 2014, when the Mayintang Chicken Cup was sold for $36 million. And, you know, why is anything valuable? It's because there's not many of them. It was crafted between 1465 and 87, when porcelain was just peaking at its quality, but they were producing the lowest amount. So it's just super rare. So that's why it fetched 36 million.

• 13:24Josh Clark?

  Yes, and that also points something out about porcelain, too, is if you take good care of it, it's so durable, it can last thousands of years. So, or at least a thousand years, as far as we know. And there's, like, people are into porcelain, like, collecting tableware or vases or things like that. And so there's like a whole world out there available to you to get into bone porcelain, hard paste, soft paste. Well, basically those kind. And if this thing floated your boat at all, I think good luck with your new hobby.

• 13:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, you said bone porcelain. If you've ever heard bone china, that was something the English did, and that's actual bone. I think when they were sort of first searching out how to make this stuff, they, before they cracked the code, they would use like eggshell and stuff like that to no avail. And finally, they landed on actual human bone ground down. Obviously, a very strong thing, bone ash would be. Not from humans, apparently from farm animals. And it would really strengthen that stuff. And bone china, you don't have to fire as high. You can fire at lower temps. It's just not as strong.

• 14:32Josh Clark?

  There is no way that in the history of bone china, no psycho has made it with human bones.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a good point. Are you enjoying your coffee?

• 14:43Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Oh, man. Chuck made me giggle. I mean, short stuff is out.

• 14:48Speaker 03

  Hey, wait a minute. Can we say goodbye for the year?

• 14:50Josh Clark?

  Oh, wait, yeah. Uh, yes, thank you, Chuck. Um, I say we do that, too.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  Goodbye. No. Uh, we, in all seriousness, we want to thank everyone for another great year.

• 15:02Speaker 03

  Somehow, here in year seventeen, we're enjoying things as much or more than we ever have, which is hard to believe, and pretty wonderful for us. And, you know, big thanks to Dave and Ben and Jerry, of course, and, uh, and everyone who contributes, his writers, you know, Julia and Anna and,

• 15:21Josh Clark?

  Livia.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  And Livia and Dave and Kyle. I think that's everybody right now, right?

• 15:26Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm. It is.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, we can thank the Grabster for the old days even.

• 15:29Josh Clark?

  There you go. He comes up in select sometimes, too, doesn't he?

• 15:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. So, um, I just want to say thanks for everyone for keeping us employed in what's, for me, the greatest job in the world. Means a lot.

• 15:40Josh Clark?

  Agreed. I second Chuck. And, uh, yeah, thank you, everybody. Thanks for another great year, and we'll see you next year for another great year.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  And now it's short stuff out?

• 15:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, short stuff is out.

• 15:55Speaker 00

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