Bone China


 

Bone China - noble tableware of high transparency

Originally from England, "Bone China" is a further development of the traditional Chinese material composition of hard porcelain. In this process, the kaolin is enriched with animal bone meal (usually bovine bone), which makes the shard much lighter and makes the consistency of the porcelain appear much more transparent. The recipe and the proportion of bone meal is a well-guarded secret from factory to factory and, as far as we know, can be up to 50% of the raw material content. As a rule, bone china is much lighter and thinner than normal hard porcelain.

Bone China, with its special, slightly yellowish shine and inimitable transparency, is usually considered the "best type of porcelain". However, since the term "best" only denotes an unconcrete superlative, this popular opinion of porcelain makers cannot be confirmed.

Although bone china is usually reserved for consumers with a somewhat larger purse, this is probably also due to the fact that this type of porcelain has been able to keep up with the league of premium porcelain.

It is a fact that the raw material of bone china is the most expensive of all earthenware types. However, since the bone meal literally burns in the temperature range of hard firing (> 1,320 °C), the firing temperatures of bone china (1,190 - 1,260 °C) are usually significantly lower than those of hard porcelain. This results in the fact that the Mohs hardness (solid state physics: tear resistance) of bone china is clearly inferior to that of typical hard porcelain. Because of this limited usability, it is usually used "as good tableware" in the household or in star restaurants.

Note: Please do not be irritated by quality designations like "New Bone", "Cashmere Bone" or "Fine Bone"! This is not real bone china, but an inferior quality ceramic!

Holst Porzellan/Germany does not stock bone china. The cost structure, durability and limited variety of use of this noble ceramic does not fit in with our concept "Simple and Strong". If you would like to learn more about bone china, we recommend visiting the pages of...


Bone China Bone china & vegan lifestyles

The desire for sustainability and climate neutrality will increasingly influence consumers' purchasing decisions. Bone china in particular is in a very critical light due to the proportion of animal bone meal used in its manufacture. In January 2022, the magazine Utopia published a scathing report on this for the first time, which examines bone china from the point of view of a vegan approach to life. Utopia gives bone china - the queen of porcelain - a catastrophic verdict.

Vor allem professionelle Gastgeber sollten ihre Kaufentscheidung für Bone China Porzellan daher kritisch überdenken.


 

24.01.2022 - Extract from our newsletter January 2022

 

On 23.01.2022, the online magazine "Utopia" posted a report about bone china on the internet with the headline "Bone china: That's why there's animal suffering in bone china". Although we at Holst Porzellan do not carry any bone china in our regular collection, we were at first quite amused by the partial nonsense of this editorial piece. Animal husbandry for bone meal - what nonsense.

However, if you look at this beautiful and very traditional porcelain through the eyes of a vegan person, the picture changes considerably. Veganism is a diet and lifestyle that evolved from vegetarianism. A way of life should not be criticised in a free society as long as it is not against the basic legal or social order and does not harm others. And there is hardly anything wrong with protecting animals and abstaining from their commercial killing. Abstaining from meat and animal products helps planet Earth, that too is indisputable. Whether veganism is lived moderately or radically is due to the free will of this way of life.  

What remains is the realisation that bone china does not correspond to the vegan way of life and that many vegans will probably be offended if they are offered food and delicacies on bone china. In the private sphere, everyone can do as they please - but what about professional hosts from the hotel and catering industry?

Bone china tableware is particularly important in the sophisticated restaurant sector. Many international hotel chains currently - still - use bone china porcelain, silverware and crystal glass in the top class of their corporate design. Those who continue to adhere to the rule of not offering anything that might displease guests will have to question bone china in the future.

Serving food and drinks on dishes containing bone meal will absolutely not please a vegan guest and will deter more and more guests in the future. Like lead crystal glass, bone china will probably be gradually removed from our table culture.  

So, once again, cheers to feldspathic porcelain!

You can find the quoted Utopia article here.

 


By the way, there are also beautiful dishes made of porcelain, as our following examples made of genuine feldspathic porcelain show, which are 100% free of animal substances.

Viewed