porcelain
"How do I know if this is from where the good porcelain comes from?" she asked.
"Ask her where it's from?" I said.
"Yeah, but what's the name of the place?"
"Ask her first, then we'll see how she answers."
So she asked the vendor at a stall selling porcelain in the Panjiayuan Market in Beijing where that particular tea set had been made.
"Jingdezhen" was the answer.
"Yep, you're good", I said.
No, I don't have any particular expertise in porcelain. Or any particular expertise at all, really. She'd been in China only a few months, I was getting close to three years. I'd just been around a bit longer, is all, and knew that:
Jingdezhen makes good porcelain
If I'd told my friend the name of the town to listen out for right there in front of the vendor, the vendor would have automatically said that name. After all, she was there to make money, not to coddle dumbarse foreigners.
Yes, that article linked above starts a bit much on the "ooh so exotic" end of the spectrum, but it gets into a reasonable rundown of the history, tradition, and artistry of Jingdezhen. Not in any detail, but good enough for a newspaper article, so why not?
Now, I really need to get me a decent purple clay teapot...