Yajiasi Faucets Hotis • Shaco • Ufaucet • Vapsint,• VC Cucine Review & Rating Updated: December 27, 2023

Summary

Imported

China

Foshan Shunde Yajiasi Kitchen Cabinet Co.,Ltd.
1st Industrial Park
Xincun West
Beijiao Town
Shunde District
Foshan City
Guangdong 528000 China

Rating

Business Type

Product Range

Kitchen, Bath, Prep, and Bar Faucets

Certifications

Brands

Hotis • Shaco • Ufaucet
 Vapsint• VCCucine

Street Price

$32 - $130

Warranty Score

Cartridge

None¹

Finishes

None

Mechanical Parts

None

Proof of Purchase

N/A

Transferable

N/A

Meets Federal Warranty
Law Requirements

N/A

Learn more about faucet warranties.

This Company In Brief

Fo­shan Shunde Ya­ji­a­si Kitchen Cabinet Co., Ltd. is an importer of contraband Chinese-made faucets that are sold illegally using various trade names by a least four different straw sellers through websites that host third-party vendors.

The faucets are of average quality and ordinary Chinese designs of no particular distinction or innovation. Their chief attraction is that they are very inexpensive, most priced at under $140.00.

The company offers no warranty on its products and has no North American base of operations through which it can supply replacement parts. If a faucet fails there is no return after the first 30 days and no repair is possible for lack of any possibility of repair parts.

Vapsint is one of several brand names used by Foshan Shunde Yajiasi Kitchen Cabinet Co.., also trading as Fo­shan Ya­ji­a­si Kitchen Cabinet Co. and Foshan Shunde VC Cucine Co. Ltd., to sell fau­cets in the U.S. and Can­ada through online retail sites that host third-party sellers.

Its primary outlet is Amazon where it maintains a number of storefronts through which it sells at least five faucet brands: Hotis, Shaco, Ufaucet, Vapsint, and VC Cucine. It also sells on Wayfair.com.

It may sell other brands. We cannot guarantee we have identified all of its brands. The company goes to great lengths to conceal and obfusticate its identification as the actual seller.

The Company

Yajiasi does not manufacture the faucets it sells. It is not a manufacturer of metal products. It is a manufacturer of wood products.

It is a furniture company, founded in 2006 to manufacture what the furniture industry calls "casework" (wardrobes and storage cabinets as well as cabinets for kitchens, bars, and bathrooms) that it sells in Europe, North America, and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand). Its Alibaba page can be displayed in sixteen languages.

Although it claims to manufacture faucets in its various Amazon storefronts^[1], we have found no indication that it actually does so.

On the various Chinese trade sites where it advertises, it never mentions being a faucet manufacturer. It advertises itself as a "professional kitchen cabinet and panel system furniture manufacturer" (LinkedIn.com) and a "large-scale manufacturer of kitchen, bathroom cabinets and panel furniture" (Made-in-China.com). It exports its cabinets and panels to over 39 countries selling under the VC Cucine and Vegas Cucine brands.

In addition to selling under its own name, Yajiasi sells faucets through associated companies and individuals. These include

• Foshan Jiachu Family Furniture Co., Ltd. (VCCucine),
• Foshan Aidi Furniture Co., Ltd. (Hotis),
• Wenjie Xu (an individual) (Shaco), and
• Tiancai Yang (an individual) (UFaucet).

The exact relationship among these sellers is unknown. We have asked Ya­ji­a­si about it, but the company did not respond to the request. It may be informal, a group of companies and individuals associated to sell faucets, or it may be formal common ownership or by common control.

The individual sellers are probably employees of one of the companies involved.

The sellers change from time to time. At our last update to this report, the sellers were Foshan Jia Chu Shijia Furn­i­ture Co. (also trading as Jiachu Shijia Co., Ltd.); HK Vccucine Kitchen & Vanity Co. Ltd.; and Foshan Xuan Sha Home Co. Ltd. These sellers have apparently fallen by the wayside.

We have been unable to discover the actual manufacturers of the faucets.

Ya­ji­a­si appears to buy from several Chinese faucet companies, but all of the transactions take place inside China, leaving no public records to which we have access. Based on the style and configuration of the faucets, we can make an educated guess as to the identity of the manufacturers, but, we prefer not to guess.

The faucets sold by Ya­ji­a­si under its various guises are largely brand-interchangeable. A Shaco faucet today may be a Hotis or Vapsint faucet tomorrow. We have found faucets sold under one brand with the name of another brand engraved on the faucet.

North American Operations

Yaijaisi misrepresents itself as having substantial facilities within North America.

For example, on its former Ufaucet website (now taken down), Yaijaisi stated that it owned a 2,500 square meter (26,000 square-foot) factory located in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

A cursory inquiry discovered, however, that the address given for the "factory" is actually a 1,600 square-foot single-family house.

If there is a 26,000 square-foot factory in New Smyrna Beach, it is not visible on Google maps and the local Police Department is unaware of it. Since it would be the size of five football fields, larger than the entire New Smyrna Beach Industrial Park and the town's largest employer, the police almost certainly would have noticed it at some point.

In a similar vein, its ShacoHome Amazon storefront claims a business address in Albemarle, North Carolina occupied by the ostensible owner of the storefront, Xu Wenjie (or Wenjie Xu). This address once again is a single-family residence. County records do not show the owner to be Xu Wenjie.^[2]

Yaijaisi's Business Model

Yaijaisi's business is actually in Beijiao Town, Foshan, China. It has no facilities in Can­ada or the United States.

The company's entire retail operation in North America is run from Beijiao. It has no North Am­er­i­can customer service, no North Am­er­i­can stock of replacement parts, not even a North Am­er­i­can telephone number.

The only contact with the company is through Amazon or Wayfair, rarely a very satisfactory communication channel.

Yajiasi's approach is to contract almost everything to do with retail sales in the U.S. and Can­ada to third parties.

It does not sell through its own websites or through brick-and-mortar stores. It sells only through Amazon and Wayfair, sites that host third-party sellers and take care of the entire retailing process for a fee, including warehousing, inventory management, payment processing, delivery, returns, and refunds.

It is a model vigorously promoted by Amazon since 2013 to encourage direct selling by Chinese manufacturers to U.S. and Canadian customers, eliminating the usual middlemen.

But, the arrangement does not solve the warranty or replacement parts problem. Amazon is not a traditional distributor. It will do a lot for its hosted companies, but it does not take care of warranty claims or provide replacement parts.

Yajiasi enters the listings for its products on the Amazon and Wayfair websites by filling in the blanks on a listing form. It also takes care of ensuring timely deliveries of its products to Amazon and Wayfair fulfillment centers in the U.S. and Can­ada. That is the entirety of its contribution to product sales. The hosting companies then take care of everything else, reducing Ya­ji­a­si's involvement to almost nothing.

Yajiasi faucets are sold under several trade names, not all of which are used at any one time, but all of which have been used at one time or another.

Our research has uncovered the brands shown in the Yajiasi Brand Table elsewhere on this page. Almost certainly there are others that we have not yet identified. Ya­ji­a­si deliberately conceals its involvement with its brands, so it is not always easy to identify the brands it sells under its various guises.

Yajiasi Faucet Design & Styling

Yajiasi fau­cets feature both contemporary and traditional styling. Many of the fau­cet designs are original with the manufacturers that make them, but they are also very conservative. The styling exhibits no particular design originality of the type that continuously pours from design-centric countries like Italy.

The goal of Chinese fau­cet manufacturers is to sell as many fau­cets as possible, which means keeping their designs well within the mainstream to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible.

Most Chin­ese designs closely follow Eur­opean and North Amer­ican faucet styles.

A style that sells well in these major markets will often be imitated by Asian factories (with minor changes to avoid patent infringement). The lag time is usually 3 to 5 years, so by the time a design appears in a Chinese fau­cet, it is no longer new.

Yajiasi's faucet designs fit this pattern. They are pleasant and often smartly styled but by no means novel or exceptional.

Faucet Construction & Composition

The fau­cets are constructed conventionally. The body and spout of the fau­cets, as well as being decorative, are the components that channel water within the fau­cet.^[2]

Some Yajiasi kitchen faucets are stainless steel. In most, however, the primary material is brass with a zinc alloy used for non-critical parts such as handles and base plates. Its spray heads and many internal parts are plastic.

Brass

Traditional (alpha) brass is a blend of copper and zinc with a small amount of lead (1.5% - 3.5%) added to make the material more malleable, less brittle, and easier to fabricate. Brass is the preferred material for faucets for two reasons:

• Brass is strong but easy to work with. It casts, forges, and machines with relative ease.

• Brass is naturally anti-microbial. The copper in brass kills microbes including bacteria, retarding the build-up of potentially hazardous germs inside a fau­cet.

But, brass has one serious drawback: it may contain lead.

Lead is now all but banned in North Amer­ica for use in any drinking water component due to its toxicity to humans, particularly children.

According to the En­vir­on­ment­al Prot­ec­tion Agen­cy (EPA), lead, even in small amounts, causes slowed growth, learning disorders, hearing loss, anemia, hyperactivity, and behavior issues.

To comply with the restrictions on lead, today's faucet brass replaces lead with other additives to reduce brittleness without add­ing toxicity. The most common is bismuth.

Bismuth is similar to lead – right next to lead on the periodic table of elements – but it is not harmful to humans.

It is, however, very expensive. It is 300 times rarer than lead, even rarer than silver, which is the reason that bismuth-brass alloys are considerably more expensive than leaded brass.

In China, there is no lead limit in drinking water, and fau­cets made in China for the domestic market often contain large amounts of lead.

Lead is prized in Chin­ese manufacturing because it is plentiful, cheap, malleable, and resistant to corrosion.

Lead compounds are regularly added to plastics and vinyl to make them more resistant to high temperatures. It is added to cheap met­al products to make them seem more substantial by increasing their weight

Most fau­cets made in China for domestic use contain leaded brass, and the temptation, especially among Chin­ese companies selling low-cost fau­cets is to sell those high-lead-con­tent fau­cets here.

Whenever we see brass faucets made in China that have not been certified lead-free, we suspect leaded brass is being used and the fau­cets have not been certified because the seller knows they will not pass lead-free testing.

Stainless Steel

Some of the kitchen faucets sold by Ya­ji­a­si are made from stainless steel, sometimes with brass. The stainless steel is identified by Ya­ji­a­si as 304 stainless, an alloy that includes chrom­ium and nickel. The nickel gives the steel a crystalline structure which increases its strength. The chromium helps the steel resist corrosion.

Stainless 304, also known as "food-grade" stainless, is by far the most common alloy used to make kitchen utensils, silverware, cookware, and fau­cets.

Steel is much harder than brass. It can be made in thinner profiles that use less material and still have more than adequate strength.

It requires processes and machinery that differ from those used to produce brass faucets. Typically a company makes either brass or stainless steel faucets but not both. Ya­ji­a­si is one of the few faucet brands to combine the materials.

Why Stainless Steel Does Not Rust: Properly alloyed stainless contains at least 10% chromium (which gives stainless its slight yellowish tinge) and a dollop of nickel. These form a coating of oxides and hydroxides on the outer surface of the steel that blocks oxygen and water from reaching the underlying metal, preventing rust from forming. The coating is very thin, only a few atoms thick, so thin that it is invisible to the eye under ordinary light but thick enough to protect the fau­cet.

Zinc & Zinc/Aluminum Alloys

Because both brass and stainless steel are expensive, manufacturers tend to use only as much as they need, substituting a less costly metal where the strength of brass or steel is not needed.

The most frequent substitute is zinc or a zinc-aluminum (ZA) alloy. One of the most common is called , a composition containing 4% aluminum.

Zinc alloys are typically not as strong as brass or steel and do not resist water pressure as well as steel. But, their use in non-pressurized parts of a brass fau­cet such as handles, base and wall plates, and is common even among manufacturers of luxury fau­cets.

They do no harm when used in these components, and may save consumers a few dollars on the price of the faucet.

Plastics

Plastic is the other commonly used substitute material. It may be safely used in incidental parts like base plates and has been largely trouble-free in aerators and as casings for ceramic cartridges but otherwise, its use is suspect especially if under water pressure.

Yajiasi kitchen fau­cet spray heads are plastic and the use of plastic for spray heads (called "wands" in the fau­cet industry) is one of the suspect uses of the material.

Un­fort­un­ate­ly, plastic wands have become the standard for many manufacturers, including some that sell upscale fau­cets such as

Manufacturers give three reasons for their use of plastic:

1. Plastic does not get uncomfortably hot in use like metal wands;

2. Plastic is not as heavy and is more comfortable to hold for long periods of time; and

3. Plastic is a lot cheaper than brass or stainless steel – even cheaper than zinc.

However, plastic wands also fail much more often than metal wands. And although engineers have made significant improvements to their reliability over the past decade, the problem has not been entirely solved.

Better wands are made of metal, insulated against excessive heat transmittal.

The Sure Cure for Too-Hot Spray Wands: The simple cure for spray wands that get too hot is to reduce the temperature of the water. Dishes do not need rinsing in scalding hot water.

Yajiasi Faucet Components

The critical components used in Ya­ji­a­si fau­cets are ceramic valve cartridges and aerators. For Ya­ji­a­si faucets, these components are mostly unknown. The company does not provide any information about them. To the extent they are known, they are unremarkable.

Valve Cartridges

We inspected several Ya­ji­a­si valve cartridges and determined that they are modern ceramic valves in of a type that is made by any number of Chinese manufacturers.

Some were imprinted with maker's marks allowing us to identify them as made by (Ningbo) Wanhai Cartridge Technology Co., Ltd. Wanhai cartridges are more commonly used in Chinese-manufactured faucets destined for the European Union where the company sells cartridges under the Quore brand from offices in Spain and Italy.

Some are starting to appear in Chinese-made faucets sold in North America (See e.g. BWE faucets .)

Wanhai cartridges have been certified to North American standards, meaning the cartridges have passed the North American life-cycle and burst tests.

The standard North Amer­ican life-cycle stress test requires operating the cartridges through 500,000 cycles under 60 psi of water pressure without a single failure. At one cycle per second, the test takes six days to complete.

The burst test subjects the cartridges to a water pressure of 500 pounds per square (psi) inch – 10 times average household water pressure of 40-60 psi for one minute. If the cartridge leaks or deforms under this pressure, it fails.

In other countries, the standards are much less rigorous. The European (EN 817) is 70,000 and Chinese (GB18145) life-cycle requirement is just 30,000 cycles.

Since Wanhai has certified its cartridges to joint U.S./Canadian standards, we can say with fair confidence that the Wanhai cartridges used in its Ya­ji­a­si faucets meet the minimum North Amer­ican requirements for durability and longevity and should provide years of leak-free service. (Read the Wanhai listing certificate.)

However, mostof the faucets w examined contained cartridges without maker marks. Companies that make good quality cartridges usually stamp them with the company name or a distinctive logo. If the cartridge has no identifying marks, we assume it is not made by one of the better companies.

Aerators

There are dozens of companies in China that manufacture aerators and spray-head assembles. Most are a least adequate.

Faucet used to be simple devices that merely added a little air to soften the water stream so it would not splash out of the sink. Today, however, they are also used to limit water volume to the lower flows required by federal and state water conservation laws, and in some cases, to prevent back-flow that can result in the contamination of household drinking water.

It is important, therefore, that this little device, often smaller than a dime, be the best available.

Unfortunately, Ya­ji­a­si does not identify the source of the aerators used in its faucets. We took several apart to see if the devices had any manufacturer identification, but they did not.

Yajiasi Faucet Finishes

The finishes that are available very much depend on the brand and the manufacturer that makes the faucet. Ufaucet, Shaco, and Vapsint brass faucets are finished in the three standard finishes: Polished Chrome, Brushed Nickel, and Oil-Rubbed Bronze (ORB). Some kitchen faucets are stainless steel which is both the material from which the faucet is made and the faucet's "finish".

Hotis and VC Cucine, positioned as Ya­ji­a­si's more upscale brands, are also available in White, Matte Black, and Gold with some faucets finished in a . We found Chrome with Black on the VC Cucine website and Chrome with Black, Gold with Black, and Chrome with White on the Hotis website.

None of the Ya­ji­a­si websites or Amazon listings identify the type of process used to create its finishes. Process type is important because it largely determines the durability of the finish.

The Chrome finishes of the faucets we examined are . Some of the Brushed Nickel finishes were also electroplated, but the finish could also be produced using (PVD). The choice of finishing process depends on the actual manufacturer(s).

Matte Black is often produced using but manufacturers have learned how to create black using PVD which is more durable. White and Oil-Rubbed Bronze, however, are almost certainly powder coatings.

Some of Ya­ji­a­si's oil-rubbed bronze differs from most ORBs. It has copper highlights. They are intended to simulate wear on the finish over time which has exposed the copper beneath the finish (See ORB faucet image elsewhere on this page). ORB finishes usually do not have highlights. Finishes that do are more commonly called vintage or antique bronze finishes.

A buyer who intends to mix ORB finishes across manufacturers should be aware that it would probably be a challenge to match this finish.

Electroplating involves immersing the fau­cet and the metal to be used as plating in an acid bath, then applying an electrical charge to both objects so metallic ions are drawn from the plating metal to the fau­cet.

Usually, multiple coats are applied, one or more undercoats and then two or more coats of the finish metal.

The process is potentially hazardous to the operator and the environment. It involves toxic and corrosive chemicals that must be disposed of safely. No other coating technology even comes close to the dangers involved in electroplating.

The top coat may be polished or brushed. Chrome, a relatively hard metal, is usually polished to a high shine. Nickel, a softer metal, is usually brushed to help hide the inevitable minor scratches.

Physical vapor deposition (PVD) is one of the latest space-age fau­cet finishing technology, rapidly replacing electroplating as the finish of choice.

Although the technology was discovered in the 19th century, it was not used in industry until the 1950s and then only rarely due to its great expense. Its first use was in nuclear reactors. Today, the technology is everywhere and the machinery required is getting smaller, faster, and cheaper all the time.

To create a PVD coating, a sealed chamber is loaded with unfinished fau­cet components, and all the air is removed and replaced by a carefully calculated mix of nitrogen or argon and reactive gases.

A rod of the metal to be used for the coating is heated to a temperature so high that the metal dissolves into individual atoms. The atoms mix with the various reactive gases to get the desired color and finish effects and are then deposited in a very thin film – 2 to 5 – on the fau­cets.

Despite being just microns thick, a PVD coating is extremely dense and, in consequence, very hard and durable. By some estimates, it is up to 20 times more scratch-resistant than electroplated chrome.

From long experience, we know that PVD is nearly impossible to accidentally scratch or mar, never fades or changes color, and resists all forms of soiling. It can usually be maintained with just an occasional wipe from a damp cloth to remove water spots. (And some PVD finishes are given a final chemical coating that resists water spots, so even the damp wipe is made largely unnecessary. A dry buff will do.)

Powder coating is usually described as semi-durable, not as robust as electroplated or PVD finishes, about as durable as the finish on your car, and requiring more care to maintain a like-new appearance.

It is essentially a dry paint in powder form applied using a special low-velocity spray gun that disperses the powder while giving it a positive electrical charge. The particles are drawn to the item to be finished which has been given a negative charge.

Once the powder is applied, the item being coated is baked in an oven which melts and bonds the powder and changes the structure of the coating into long, cross-linked molecular chains.

These chains are what give the coating its durability, reducing the risk of scratches, chipping, abrasions, corrosion, fading, and other wear issues.

Faucet Design & Styling

The faucets are Chinese designs. Some are original. Foshan Shunde Yaijaisi Kitchen Cabinet Co. owns 15 U.S. design patents for faucets under the name Zeng De Ju (or Deng Deju), who, not coincidentally, is also the registrant of the Vapsint and VC Cucine trademarks in the U.S. Registering a trademark is a requirement to sell on Amazon. Chinese companies that want to remain anonymous often register under the names of individuals rather than the company name. The Ufaucet and Hotis trademarks, for example, are registered by Tian Cai Yang (or TianCai Yang).

The faucets do not depart substantially from the usual run of Chinese faucet designs which are largely unexciting, frequently copies of Western styles, and rarely cutting edge. (Although Chinese design is getting better and sometimes even award-winning. (See, e.g. Yatin Kit­chen & Bath's Leaf faucet by Yatin's in-house designer Huang Nannan.)

The goal of most Chinese faucet manufacturers is to sell as many faucets as possible, which means keeping designs well within established style boundaries to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible.

The collection is heavily skewed toward contemporary faucet styles, but with a leavening of enough traditional designs to suit just about any decor preference from Victorian to urban chic.

To learn more about faucet styles and configurations, see Faucet Basics, Part 4: Style and Configuration.

Ya­ji­a­si Websites

Every brand sold by Ya­ji­a­si had its own website at one time. As of the date of this report, however, they have all been taken down.

There is no U.S. contact telephone number provided. The only contact is through an email address.

We sent several e-mails to those addresses asking for information about the company or particular faucets and got a response about half of the time. When we did get a response, it often did not address the specific question asked or provided incorrect information.

Faucet Warranty

There is no faucet warranty.

On various websites, the company refers to a "10-year warranty" or "lifetime replacement warranty" but none of the various selling sites responded when we asked for a copy of the written warranty containing those terms.

The U.S. Mag­nu­son-Moss War­ranty Act (15 U.S.C. §2301) requires a consumer product warranty to be in writing and to contain certain specified minimum information. It also requires the warranty to be available from any website on which the faucet is sold so a potential buyer can read it before making a purchase. Amazon, where most Ya­ji­a­si faucets are sold, does not show to link to a Ya­ji­a­si warranty.

By its lack of a warranty, Ya­ji­a­si is telling you that it does not have enough confidence in the durability or longevity of its faucets to guarantee them for more than the 30-day return pepriod offered by the hosting websites.

Faucet Testing & Certification

All of the faucets sold by Ya­ji­a­si are contraband. None are certified to joint U.S./Canadian standards.

Cimparable Faucets

Legal, certified faucets made in China or Taiwan comparable to Ya­ji­a­si faucets in price, quality, and design, but with a written warranty of some kind, include:

Conclusions

There is absolutely no reason to buy any of Ya­ji­asi fau­cets. They are much too risky for use in a home kitchen or bath.

1. Price is not enough. The prices on Ya­ji­asi fau­cets make them attractive, but, as the list above demonstrates, a great many other companies sell good quality Chin­ese-made fau­cets for about the same price that are fully certified, legal to use in a drinking water system, and backed by a much stronger warranty. Many are guaranteed for the lifetime of the buyer.

2. They have not been certified so the presence of toxic substances like lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury in the fau­cet has not been excluded. Because these are Chin­ese-made products, lead is a substantial risk due to the lack of lead regulation in China.

4. Ya­ji­asi has no written warranty on the fau­cets, suggesting that even the seller does not have enough confidence in their long-term durability to provide an enforceable guarantee.

4. The fau­cets cannot be legally installed in a drinking water system anywhere in the U.S. or Canada. A plumber probably will not install one for you, and if you do it yourself you risk, at the very least, having to replace the fau­cet with a legal product and the possibility in some jurisdictions of a fine and a little jail time.

We are continuing to research the company. If you have experience with Hotis, Shaco, Ufaucet, Vapsint, or VC Cucine faucets, good, bad, or indifferent, we would like to hear about it, so please contact us or post a comment below.