True lacquer (大漆, da qi) is the only finish in this catalog that is still made essentially the way it was eight thousand years ago, and the reason is simple: nothing synthetic has ever matched it. Here is where it comes from and why the real thing costs what it costs.
The Sap
Lacquer is the tapped sap of the lacquer tree (漆树, qi shu, Toxicodendron vernicifluum), a relative of poison ivy - which is why the raw sap irritates skin and the harvesters who work with it daily build a famous immunity. The trees are tapped in summer: channels cut into the bark, the amber sap collected drop by drop. A single tree yields only a few grams of raw lacquer per season. It is, weight for weight, one of the most labor-expensive natural materials on earth.
The Counterintuitive Chemistry
Here is the part that surprises everyone: lacquer does not dry. It cures, and it cures in humidity. Each coated layer hardens over days in a warm, damp, dust-free curing room (荫房, yin fang) - the opposite of every paint you have ever used. Rush the cure and the layer clouds, wrinkles, or never fully hardens. This one quirk of chemistry is why lacquerwork cannot be industrialized into true mass production: every layer of every piece needs its own quiet days in the damp dark.
The Layering
A lacquer bead starts as a core - wood, or sometimes metal for weight - and receives coat after coat of refined lacquer, each one applied thin, cured, wet-sanded, and inspected. A serious piece carries dozens of layers; carved lacquer (雕漆, diao qi) builds a hundred or more, until the lacquer itself is thicker than a coin and can be carved down like stone. Do the arithmetic: a hundred layers, each needing days of cure, is months of calendar time for a single finished piece. That arithmetic is the price tag.
The Finishes
- Plain lacquer: polished to a depth of gloss varnish only imitates. Deep black comes from iron compounds reacting in the lacquer; red comes from cinnabar pigment - the two crafts meet on our Cinnabar page.
- Carved lacquer: the hundred-layer stack, carved in relief through the colors.
- Inlaid (螺钿, luo dian): mother-of-pearl laid into the layers and buried under more coats until it glows through the surface like moonlight through water.
The Shortcut (and How to Spot It)
Most "lacquer" beads on the market are wood or resin wearing synthetic varnish: shinier on day one, never deepening, and silent about what they are. The tells are the honest ones - true lacquer has a warmth and depth under the shine that varnish can't fake, and it carries a price that reflects months of curing rooms. On our listings we say which one you're holding. (Full material page: Daqi.)
Related: Daqi · Cinnabar · Authenticity Guides · Caring for Bone & Wood