Chinese Yixing Clay Tea Pots

[LuckyGirl]

O.K. Richard, you have convinced me to hold off on purchasing a Yixing pot. I will pick up a gaiwan cup, or two, later this week when I hit the Asian import stores for a few staples. This will allow me to look for and handle yixings in person and get more of a feel for them before I buy one. I was so taken with the whole experience using a small yixing pot and having tea gongfu style over the weekend that I really wanted to continue that method but I can do that with the gaiwan cup.

In the mean time I will keep using my tetsubin which has served me well thus far. It has a nice big basket that almost touches the bottom of the pot so I am able to make smaller brews than what the pot is designed for. There is of course, a lot of "head room" but I don't think that will effect my brewing in a way that makes a big difference. The basket allows the whole leaves plenty of movement though certainly not as much as floating around freely would. If I were brewing a tea with larger leaves or a tea on stems I suppose I would let it float in the pot without the basket but for now the basket has been fine.

Which leads me to a question. One of the teas I had over the weekend was leaves on stems (an alishan oolong). It was one of the most astringent teas I've had thus far. Wouldn't the stems contibute to that tanniness?

[Wholemeal Crank]

Long time quiet topic.

So....I bought one more of the little 60mL size yixing pots this weekend from Wing Hop Fung, and decided I should season them properly, since I'd done very little with them before besides pouring boiling water in and over them.

I put them all in a large stock pot, two layers with a couple of trivets to separate the layers, lids and pots; filled the the pot to cover with tap water, and brought it to a boil, dropped the heat to lowest I could keep the gas on for an hour or two, then turned off the heat and let them soak overnight.

The next day, there was a little scum visible on the surface of the water, not sure if it was from wax on the pots or something else. A couple of the pots still feel relatively slick on the surface compared to the rest; all are relatively rough inside. The rinse water was a little orangey at first--?clay colored?--but quickly became clear.

They've all but the one been rinsed with boiling water before, and they're drying now, and later this week I was planning to start with tea soaks. Eventually I want to do a couple of comparison tastings of the same tea brewed in my glass teapot, the dedicated newly seasoned yixing, and a gaiwan.

Edited April 19, 2010 by Wholemeal Crank (log)

[Wholemeal Crank]

Backing up a step: after the pots were dried, there was a white, waxy coating on some of them. I think letting them cool in the water was a mistake, and will reheat, remove and rinse them while hot.

Edited April 20, 2010 by Wholemeal Crank (log)

[Richard Kilgore]

Yixing pots are not typically coated in wax or anything else More likely it is a non-Yixing clay treated to look attractive to the buyer. How about separating the waxy ones and seasoning the others.

[Richard Kilgore]

I just succumbed to the hype and bought a purple clay tea pot.  My tea still tastes the same  Does anyone else use a purple clay tea pot?

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I own several Yixing pots (a few of them can be seen here My Tea Service) and I find that it more of a cultural attraction than anything else. The heat properties are supposed to be supperior however it more art in my mind. Will it make you tea taste better today, probably not, but it is said that if you brew ONLY the same type of tea in the pot it will develop a seasoning and character of it's own.

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Mike Petro

Pu-erh, A Westerner's Quest

While Yixing pots are of cultural significance and they have been made in a wide range of interesting shapes over the centuries, my experience has been that while the shape of the pot has some practical importance related to the shape of the leaf, the clay used has even more impact on the final result. Matching a pot with the type of tea that brews best with it often takes some experimentation.

I do agree, Mike, that with seasoning and use, a Yixing teapot that is used to brew one type of tea will develop a character of its own. In fact, when I first got one older Yixing, I poured hot water in it after a quick rinse, and the hot water tasted of Oolong. Not just a Yixing legend.