A Tea Addict's Journal

Another pot awaiting a big clean

Yes, it’s very dirty. The pot is covered in stains of some sort or another, and the inside of the pot is filthy

This is, supposedly anyway, a Tiehuaxuan pot from the Republican period. Is it authentic? I can’t say for sure (few things are “for sure” in the teapot world). I can say though the little lion on top of the lid is much better done than most of the other ones I’ve seen. I usually am no fan of this design, but this pot caught my eye.

For the cleaning this time, I’m going to try something new

Yup, you read that right. Let’s see how it turns out.

Since the pot in the last post has generated some interest, I thought I should post some pictures of what’s inside. Let’s start with the lid

If you look at the third picture, you can see evidence of how the whole band of clay was wrapped around. For the entire pot, no effort was made to conceal any of these worksmanship edges — they are all there for you to see.

Same thing for the inside of the pot.

You can see how the edge is not smoothed out. Neither is the joint line

And of course, for a pot like this, only one hole will do

A knowledgable friend said that Yixing pots didn’t start concealing/smoothing out joint lines until the late Qing. Does that make my pot very old? Maybe. It was well used when I bought it (complete with lots of stains — it was very, very dirty). Whatever it is, you’re unlikely to find another pot that looks like this anywhere.

Taking pictures of the inside of a pot is always a difficult thing. You have to have good lights. I don’t have very good lights right now, but maybe I’ll try some more pictures later tomorrow or something.

I was always intrigued by the use of some sort of a gold looking bond to fix a pot. So, in an effort to figure out what it is, I bought one.

This pot is of an unknown make, but probably pretty old, as I don’t think they fix pots these days this way.

The pot was cracked on one side, but didn’t crack all the way, I think. Either the spout was broken off and caused a big crack along the pot, or, it’s one of those nasty “hot water in cold pot” kind of accident. Either way, the fix was some sort of liquidy looking thing that gelled. I have no idea what it is (chemist, anywhere?). The gold colour is a bit of a paint, it seems, used in all kinds of gilded goods and what not, I would imagine.

Here’s the other side and a closeup

Very cute little thing. I like it.

As requested — These days I’m using mostly these two pots

Left — aged oolong. Right — cooked or heavily stored, cheap puerh. They’ve worked pretty well so far, and the aged oolong pot has seen a lot of action recently. They’ve definitely gotten a little more shine over time.

Well, since people asked questions….. how about a few more pictures…. with a little cousin

Notice a few things…

1) The interior bottom of the bigger pot — it doesn’t have the grooves you find very common in modern day pots

2) The small pot’s lid has that interesting joint line

3) It’s really small

I’m still mired in work of various sort, which means I’m still drinking my daily aged baozhong. My attempt to switch it up today with Yunnan Gold backfired — the headache returned. No Yunnan Gold.

So, while I have nothing to report on the tea front, here’s a teapot for all of you to look at

This is what I’ve been doing the past few days

Is it any better than drinking with the leaves straight in the cup? I’m not so sure, actually. In some ways, having the leaves sitting in the cup actually makes it more interesting — one of the things I usually do is refill the cup before all the tea is gone, and so water mixes with the remaining (usually rather concentrated) tea. It seems to change the way the tea tastes, because when I use a pot to brew the tea and then pour it into the cup, the taste is sometimes sharper — cleaner, I guess you can say, but also less complex in a way.

I’m not entirely sure what’s better, necessarily, but it does stretch the tea out more with the pot — I can brew it for a day and half, instead of just a day. I’m burning through this aged baozhong though….

I have an incredible fizzing pot

This thing is a little strange. It fizzes when I first pour hot water into and over it. What is it is that there are some smallish holes on the surface of the pot that will, essentially, expel air as it expands with heat. The pot will literally fizz when I first warm it up. Subsequently, the fizz won’t happen, or is at least a lot more subdued.

You can sort of see the holes in the closeup. I think this pot is not made with yixing clay, but something else, as I don’t think Yixing clay generally has such low density. It has definitely turned darker over time as I use it more — I’ve been brewing young puerh in it, and it has worked quite well for me.

There has been some hullabaloo recently on Teachat about pots made with clay that’s not from Yixing…. but last time I checked, non-Yixing clay can make good tea. You have Japanese clay pots of various ilk, you have Shantou pots, and then you have mystery pots like this one…

As long as the tea comes out good… does it really matter?