Soft-paste porcelain its soft-paste and hard-paste varieties is fraught with misconceptions", and various categories based on the analysis of the ingredients have been proposed instead. Some writers have proposed a "catch-all" category of "hybrid" porcelain, to include bone china and various "variant" bodies made at various times. At least in the past, some sources dealing with modern industrial chemistry and pottery production have made a completely different distinction between "hard porcelain" and "soft porcelain", by which all forms of pottery porcelain, including East Asian wares, are "soft porcelain". Chinese porcelain, which arrived in Europe before the 14th century, was much admired and
Jingdezhen porcelain dominate production for the luxury market under the Qing. The imperial kilns were revived with 6 kilns and 23 workshops, dividing the other parts of the production process between them. Massive orders for the imperial palaces and temples resumed. While imperial taste in decoration remained somewhat conservative, the technical quality of Kangxi imperial wares reached new heights. The imperial kilns led the development of the new palettes of overglaze enamels; "famille verte", developed in two phases, was followed by "famille rose", and later others; these were the last major technical innovations at Jingdezhen, along with a technique for firing gold