A First Attempt At Pottery

I admit I haven't got much here to share, but as the results of my "bisque firing" (read: drying in a 400F toaster oven) of this little coil pot are in and much better than expected, I'm a bit excited by what right now seem like nearly endless possibilities for future exploration. This little jar no more than ten centimeters tall is made of local clay I dug out of a wet, marshy area near my neighborhood a couple of weeks ago. Given that I have no real knowledge of pottery, let alone experience of any kind, I'm quite enthused to have produced something from this field mud that will stand up on its own. Currently it's still very rough, but my plan is to put a clay slip on it to smooth out the surface and fill in some small cracks before firing it (a bit more) properly. The end goal for this pot is to use it as a short-term storage jar for tea, using its unglazed walls perhaps to tone-down the fire of over-roasted oolongs, or mellow out musty pu'erh. Just how different teas will really react to it as a storage environment, however, remains to be seen, and that I will eventually find out relies heavily on the assumption that the clay will stand up to further processing, something I can hardly be sure of. Needless to say, there will have to be more trial and plenty of error, but this small success has left me feeling encouraged and optimistic towards finding out what can be done with basic, backyard pottery methods.