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
Liverpool porcelain was said to be known as the "Pottery Capital of the World" (at least in the American Mid-West). The factories included: Richard Chaffers made soapstone-type porcelain featuring mainly Oriental designs at Shaw's Brow. An advertisement for it in 1756 provides the earliest documentation of Liverpool porcelain production, which he continued until his death in 1765. In 1756 he also held a license to mine soapstone at a site in Cornwall. The porcelain resembles Worcester porcelain. Most of the plates made by the factory are octagonal, and some tea and coffee sets are six-sided. A common product was a bulbous mug