Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: All About Porcelain

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

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

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, Harry Potter fans. Huge news. Harry Potter, the full cast audio editions, are all being released on Audible, on a monthly basis, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

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And that's it. That's all I had to say about that. All right. Well, let's talk porcelain because porcelain isn't something I really knew much about 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. What? They are both made of clay, and they're both kiln-fired. But porcelain clay has a much higher density, and it's fired longer and at higher temperatures. And Thusley is much more durable, has very high performance characteristics, and it's, you know, porcelain is 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. 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. Yeah, toilets, yeah, they don't break. Try it. You can't do it.

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 calen, which is a kind of clay that's almost white.

And this is like the big money porcelain clay. Yeah, and that's usually going to be like that mixing bowl, like tableware is usually that caolin. Very, very fine particle size. 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, 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 what you're making it for. Like, is it a toilet or is it a mixing bowl or is it fine china? 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? Yeah, because I've worked with porcelain tile where you can do that.

A lot of time, 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, 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 just went wild for this stuff.

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, mine China was to 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 piece that he had from China. Yeah, a German alchemist, Johann Friedrich Buretge. 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 Cowell and Clay in Cornwall, England. And so the Brits were like, we can start making this stuff finally. We've got the good stuff right here in Cornwall. Is it Cowlin, like Shaolin? I don't know.

I like how you said it. Well, how did you say it? Kowlin? Kowlin? No, no. So, yeah, so the Brits are like, great. We can put all this together thanks to Bukur and Cornwall and start making our own port.

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 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. 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've 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. Me too. But really has nothing to do with it. It's already impermeable. The glazing is just decorative. 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. So I say, Chuck, we take a little break and come back and talk some more about porcelain. What do you think? Let's do it. Harry Potter, the full cast audio editions are all being released on Audible on a monthly basis, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is already out. You have never experienced the wizarding world like this before.

They've taken it to another level. The cast is perfect. Hugh Lorry is Dumbledore, Matthew McFaddy and is Baltimore, Riz Ahmed as Snape, and Cush Jumbo as the narrator. And there are too many others to name. There's even a brand new musical score. And the sound design, you'll feel like you're right there. Footsteps echoing down the halls of Hogwarts, a golden snitch flying past your ear.

The Hogwarts Express rumbling out of platform 9 and 3 quarters, and it's all in Dolby Atmos, which makes the wizardry even more magical. Plus, these are the unabridged versions, even more awesomeness. As I mentioned, the first book is out, and the next installments in the series will be released every month until all seven are out. Go to audible.ca.h slash HP1 and start listening now. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc, and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you.

Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO, Sam Aldman. There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person billion-dollar company,

which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now. will happen. I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses. Listen to Shell Game on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 Bisk.

Bisk. Okay. Like B-I-S-Q-U-E? Exactly. Like tomato, shrimp. Lobster. Lobster? That's the money one, sure. Although a lot of times that stuff's Langostino, you know.

I didn't know that. 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. Is that a rock lobster, langistina? No, I think it's just like a little tiny, a little tiny guy. Tastes like chicken. I mean, it looks like lobster meat, but it's their little, you know, it's like a shrimp size. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, I've seen those before.

I've never seen a Langostina, though. Now that you mentioned, I've never looked that up. I think that's what... See what the creature looks like. Yeah, I'd like to see that, too. I've only seen it dead. I think that's what grabs everyone's faces in beetle juice during the calypso scene. Oh, 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. We 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. Yeah, with a big old machine. Right? Yes. 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. The raw materials are things like clay and feldspar. It's really easy to clean, as you know with a toilet, very resistant and mold 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. Like a toilet. 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. 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. That's right. You mentioned how valuable it can be. The world auction record for Chinese porcelain was said about, I don't know, in 2014, when the Mayan Tang 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 was just super rare.

So that's why it fetched $36 million. 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 1,000 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.

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, before they crack 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 it lower temps. It's just not as strong. There is no way that in the history of bone china, no psycho has made it with human bones. Yeah, that's a good point. Are you enjoying your coffee? Exactly. Oh man, Chuck made me giggle. That means short stuff is out. Hey, wait a minute. Can we say goodbye for the year? Oh, wait, yeah. Yes, thank you, Chuck. I say we do that too. Goodbye. No. We, in all seriousness, we want to thank everyone for another great year. Somehow here in year 17, 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, and Ben and Jerry, of course, and everyone who contributes as writers, you know, Julia and Anna and...

Livia, Dave, and Kyle. I think that's everybody right now, right? Mm-hmm. It is. Yeah, we can thank the Grabster for the old days even. There you go. He comes up and select sometimes, too, doesn't he? Yeah, for sure. So I just want to say thanks for everyone for keeping us employed in what's, for me, the greatest job in the world. It means a lot. Agreed. I second Chuck. And, yeah, thank you, everybody.

Thanks for another great year, and we'll see you next year for another great year. And now with Short Stuff Out? Yeah, Short Stuff is out. Stuff You Should Know is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.