The tourist markets in Puebla are filled with telavera or blue and yellow pottery specific to Puebla.
Whether you are interested in a full dining set or just a vase, you will probably find it.
However, to get a real grasp of telavera's impact on the city's history you need to travel off the tourist path and visit
Uriarte Telavera. This is the oldest running company in Puebla and the second oldest in Mexico.
They started by selling common dishes by the kilo, and now they do special to order items. You can special order mugs to have your company logo or your own unique dish set.
However, the entire process is completed by hand and internationally protected. They have however moved from the wood fired kiln shown below to a more efficient gas burning one.
They do not use common knives or rulers, but true to tradition, they have hand made tools from sticks and wire.
Apparently productive is not hurt by the lack of tools.
The company is even located in the original location. The store is located in the residence of the original owners and is ornately decorated with tiled murals, edgings, and fountains.
Here you can see the process. The clay starts out as dark gray (back right), then they fire it once and it becomes an orangish red color, dipping it in the first glaze turns it yellow, afterwards they put a charcoal outline of the design (the charcoal is burned up in the final firing process), then they paint it in glaze, and the final step is to fire it one last time. It was fun to tour the factory and see people patiently working away.
Whether you are interested in a full dining set or just a vase, you will probably find it.
However, to get a real grasp of telavera's impact on the city's history you need to travel off the tourist path and visit Uriarte Telavera. This is the oldest running company in Puebla and the second oldest in Mexico.
They started by selling common dishes by the kilo, and now they do special to order items. You can special order mugs to have your company logo or your own unique dish set.
However, the entire process is completed by hand and internationally protected. They have however moved from the wood fired kiln shown below to a more efficient gas burning one.
They do not use common knives or rulers, but true to tradition, they have hand made tools from sticks and wire.
Apparently productive is not hurt by the lack of tools.
The company is even located in the original location. The store is located in the residence of the original owners and is ornately decorated with tiled murals, edgings, and fountains.
Here you can see the process. The clay starts out as dark gray (back right), then they fire it once and it becomes an orangish red color, dipping it in the first glaze turns it yellow, afterwards they put a charcoal outline of the design (the charcoal is burned up in the final firing process), then they paint it in glaze, and the final step is to fire it one last time. It was fun to tour the factory and see people patiently working away.
