A Tea Addict's Journal

If there ever were a point at which a person can have too many teapots…

I must soon be approaching it.

Unpacking and then organizing all my stuff after my move has led me to reassess what I have, and at least think about (and perhaps act upon) what I should keep and what I don’t need/want anymore.  What you see above are all my unglazed teapots – there are a few missing, because they live in boxes and I didn’t quite feel like taking them out.  Of these 100+ items, however, I really only use these ones on a very regular basis

A number of others I use more sparingly

Some I used to use a lot, but for various reasons, I don’t anymore

And some that I know I’ll never, ever use, because I got them for more or less decorative purposes, and they are sized and shaped in such a way as to making tea brewing almost impossible

Among all the Yixing pots here, there are a few tokoname, which are more or less easily identifiable.  There are also the ugly ducklings — Santou pots, which are less obvious.

After I took this picture I realized that one eluded my eyes and hid among a bunch of yixing pots.

So, what does that leave me?  There are still dozens of pots that I have not accounted for, basically.  One reason is because quite a few of them are in bad shape, cleanliness wise.  I need to wash and clean them before I can actually use them, and am currently in the process of doing that.  I also need to start doing a better job of rotating my teapots so that I have less “rarely, if ever, used” ones and more “frequently used” ones instead.  In other words, I need to spread the tea around.  Finally, I need to start culling the collection.  There are some items here that I know I’ll never use (personal preference), or are just not practical (usually too big).  So, those need to go.