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
Chinese export porcelain VOC, this became possible, and eventually even specific armorial designs could be ordered from Europe. Wares from the 16th century include Kraak porcelain, Yixing stonewares, Blanc de Chine, blue and white porcelain, famille verte, noire, jaune and rose, Chinese Imari, armorial wares, and Canton porcelain. Chinese export porcelain was generally decorative, but without the symbolic significance of wares produced for the Chinese home market. Except for the rare Huashi soft paste wares, traditionally Chinese porcelain was made using kaolin and petuntse. While rim chips and hairline cracks are common, pieces tend not to stain. Chinese wares were usually thinner than