Dear Erna,

You have a Yixing teapot made for use in tea ceremony in China. Its made after 1980. Because these pots become very popular they are also made for export to the west. Original pots were made in Yixing, in southern Jiangsu province, People's Republic of China. The clay was found there. Nowadays its hard to tell if the clay for the later ( modern ) pots is still from the Yixing area or not. Chinese believe that the clay adds flavor to the tea and older pots add more flavor. Therefor older pots are sought after and the 17th century ones can really fetch up to 1 million dollar a piece..Nice pot. Not very expensive. I would recommend drinking tea from it.