A Tea Addict's Journal

Entries tagged as ‘yixing’

How it happened

May 22, 2008 · 1 Comment

So, how did I break the thing anyway?

No, it did not involve catastrophic drops or bangs or anything, in fact, it was quite routine — which made it all the more surprising.

See…. this pot (and many others I own) have a single hole design. Single holed pots are more prone to leaves getting stuck in them. Personally, I don’t mind it very much. I actually prefer it to multi-holed pots. Don’t ask me why.

Normally, when a pot gets stuck, I use the little tool that we all have — that long, thin thing that was designed for this purpose. Ok, good, except that this time, when I was pulling it out, it seems that the slightly oval cross section means that one side was wider than the other, and when the pulling out was coupled with a slight (unwitting) turning motion….. it pushed on the walls of the spout, and it snapped.

Older yixings tend to be a little less sturdy. This is a well known fact — people I know in HK who are more experienced than I in older pots all tell me to be careful with them, especially the handles, which break off all the time. Alas, it applies to spouts too.

So, now I am going to be very careful using that spout clearing tool. I know I’m not the only one who had this happen — Danica of the LA Tea Group also had (from what she described) an identical accident with an older pot. Be careful when you use that thing!

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A minor disaster

May 20, 2008 · 10 Comments

I’m fully guilty of causing this.

I have the original piece…. and it sort of still fits. I’m thinking of just using super glue.

Despite all the talk about glue maybe changing the way the tea taste… I can’t really bear the sight. The pot is still usable right now, but I don’t think I can use it in this condition.

How much formaldehyde can be released by a small amount of super glue to stick this piece back on anyway? Not much, right? Don’t our bodies produce that stuff anyway? I’m sure with enough tea… the carcinogenic effects of this wonderful compound will be neutralized….

Sigh, excuse me if I seem to be moody today.

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Trying out a new pot…

April 30, 2008 · 1 Comment

I used my newly cleaned pot today to make Iwii’s sample 5. Originally, the thought was to see if this pot is any good for young puerh. However, I realized that I don’t know the tea well enough to really judge whether it is making it any better than usual or not, and since I used up the rest of the sample, I have no real way of comparing. One tasting does not a good impression form, I suppose, and so…. I decided that what I might be doing for the rest of the week (or even beyond..) is to use this pot to make a number of different kinds of tea, and see which one it goes the best with. I might actually brew the same tea two days in a row, except that one day it will be with the newer pot, one will be with my usual, and see if that makes any difference….

The new pot I got is really quite porous, so I am thinking it might be good for things like wet stored puerh…. but I guess we’ll find out soon enough, or at least, I’ll have fun trying.

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The power of bleach

April 28, 2008 · 8 Comments

Before:

A pretty dirty pot, if I may say so myself. I got this recently, and it hasn’t been cleaned. Time to clean it.

It took a dip in a diluted bleach bath for an hour or two. Then I dunked it in water to try to “de-bleach” the thing. I figured I’d first soak it with some water and see how it does, and then try to do some tea with it. It’s interesting to note that the water turns yellow after a while of soaking — I was using cold water at this point. There’s truth to the “old pots will brew tea on its own” theory.

The pot is now very clean

Now I’m going to let it soak some more, then probably sink it in some tea to wash away the bleach…. then it’s time to try making some tea in this thing.

Exciting, isn’t it? I should’ve taken more chemistry.

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Thoughts on seasoning pots

April 26, 2008 · 7 Comments

My method of seasoning pots is really very simple — use it. I remember when I first started out, I’ve learned all these tricks and things you do when you get a new pot. These days, I find myself not caring so much about all that, since I now tend to think they’re mostly just myth. I do still boil my pots when I get them new, because there are gunk and things that you don’t really want that you may wish to clear out of the pot. The first time I brew a tea in it I won’t drink, because new pots can be nasty. Otherwise though…. I just use.

I do polish my pots sometimes, with a wet (very important — must be wet) towel. Dry towels can make your pot look really shiny but in a slightly undignified way. Rub the pot with the wet towel while the pot’s hot… it will give it a nice shine without that “dry rub” look.

It is important to keep the lids more or less even coloured with the body of the pot, so it is necessary to pay extra attention to the lid. It is also important to make sure that mineral deposits don’t form on the pot — those can be rather difficult to get rid of once they set in. If you have a habit of pouring water over the pot, for example, they can congregate in certain parts of the lid/pot and gradually build up mineral rings. I’ve had one pot that I had to then meticulously work out the ring by constantly rubbing/seasoning that part. Not fun. Use a brush to brush out the liquid so that it won’t happen.

Other than that….. there really isn’t much to do. I’ve found that just by repeated brewing, without even much polishing, the pots gradually will take on a bit of a shine. It’s nice when you can see it change like that — somehow there’s a sense of accomplishment. It’s part of the fun.

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New thoughts on gaiwan vs yixing

April 24, 2008 · 9 Comments

As many of you have probably noticed, I almost never use gaiwans anymore. In fact, last time I touched any of them was when I sold one of them in my teaware firesale. Before that…. I don’t remember when the last time I used a gaiwan was.

I’ve found that there’s really no good reason to use gaiwan when one can use a yixing. I used to think that it is better, for the purpose of testing a tea, to use a yixing rather than a gaiwan, because, so the thinking goes, the yixing might change the way the tea taste in a way that a gaiwan would not. So, gaiwan is thus more accurate as a way to assess a tea.

I think that is still true if and when I am trying to test out a larger number of teas all in one go using the same parameters, as in a multiple sample tasting using, say, 5 minutes brewing. However, I almost never do that. Instead, I brew them normally and form my opinions based on that. If that’s the case, why should I use a gaiwan? After all, if, say, I were making a purchase decision, ultimately after I do buy the tea, I’ll be using my yixing to make it anyway. It would be foolish to use a gaiwan to test it and then never use the gaiwan again to brew it for drinking. As anybody who has used multiple pots for the same tea would probably know, teas behave differently in different pots. Shouldn’t I be testing the tea based on how I would normally drink it, rather than how I never drink it?

Of course, the other thing is that one realizes that there are so many other variables involved, one thing (i.e. vessel) doesn’t really make that much of a difference. Once I saw past that…. I’ve never used a gaiwan since, basically.

Besides, using more teas in pots season them faster. That’s always a plus.

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Primary colours

April 19, 2008 · 8 Comments

Since I was on the topic of colours of teapots

The top right is yesterday’s pot. The bottom right is my dancong pot. I think you can see why I say it’s the closest, but still not purple…

Enjoy 🙂

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Purple clay?

April 17, 2008 · 6 Comments

Everybody knows that Yixing clay is supposed to be good for tea. Everybody also knows that Yixing is often called purple clay, but how often have you ever seen stuff that can truly be called purple? They’re most likely red, brown, dark brown, beige, green, or blue even, but purple?

I found a pot that may, I think, qualify as purple

The only other pot that comes near this colour is my dancong pot, but that, when put next to this one, appears dark brown instead of purple. I didn’t mess with the colour balance on this picture, and it’s taken under sunlight. The pot really is sort of purple.

Is this the original yixing clay? Is this how Yixing zisha is supposed to look?

The pot I got for what is basically a song, and I think it might be a Republian (1911-1949) pot. The maker’s mark is Gemingchang, which is a Republican period workshop. It’s not the world’s best made pot. But the clay intrigues me. It’s purple. It’s a bit rough to the touch. In fact, I’ve noticed over time that many older pots seem to have rougher surfaces than the ones that are made these days (real zhuni excepted). The reason, as I was told, is that nowadays the clay is mixed much more finely, whereas back in the day without machine or high tech tools, the most they can do with the clay is a coarse ground. That would make sense, I suppose. I also wonder though if the clay themselves changed over time. I’m sure it has.

I used this to make the biyuzhu again today, this time with a lot less leaves. Compared to the zhuni pot, this time it came out a little less fragrant, but the depth and the throatiness was much more pronounced. The tea still lasts forever, even with less leaves…

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Teapot mysteries again

April 1, 2008 · 9 Comments

First of all, thanks for those comments, as I try to plug the holes in the article and make it a little better.

Here’s some more of that “is that really true?” business with teapots.

I remember one of the very first things I learned with pots is that they need to be well made. Ok, but what’s well made? Well, it means that they should

1) be well made
2) pour well
3) good to handle

Now, I don’t think anybody will have any sort of problem with any of these issues, and neither do I. However, I do have some issues with the way things have been portrayed or interpreted.

For example, I have been told before that to test whether or not whether a lid is well made, one puts water into the pot, put the lid on, and then pour water out. First of all, the stream of water should be smooth and doesn’t break for a long time. Second, when you put your finger on the air hole, the stream of water should stop completely — this is, supposedly, evidence of a well fitted lid and a well made pot. Good for purchase.

That’s the part that I’m questioning these days. My black pot, which makes good tea, leaks when you pour. It does not stop flowing when you put your finger on the air hole. In fact, it hardly slows when you do that. The lid is fitted, but not well fitted, obviously. The pouring is good, but not fantastic. But… it makes good tea.

Since when did it matter whether or not a pot stops pouring entirely when you push on the air hole? How does it affect tea making? In the days before machine made pots, could one truly expect such things from a teapot?

I’m not so sure. I don’t see how that has anything to do with the making of tea. That’s an action that nobody would ever perform when pouring tea out of a pot. Obviously, a lid that is so loose as to leak water profusely out of the lid is no good, but that’s an obvious case of poor make. A pot that doesn’t stop entirely when you plug the air hole, or a pot that has a stream that starts breaking earlier than others, is not a pot that will kill you.

The lid leaking a bit when you’re pouring is a bit of an annoyance, but it’s not a deal killer either, as long as you learn how to use a pot and control it properly. The only thing I can think of when that can be a problem is when you try to do it Chaozhou style, and the lid leaks tea everywhere. But that’s something that can be managed.

If anything, I think a well made pot needs to be made of 1) good clay, 2) good pour (including a fast pour…. not too slow, as some pots are prone to do) and 3) good handling. But ultimately… it needs to make good tea. A pot that doesn’t make good tea, in my opinion, is a useless pot. I don’t know how a tight fitted lid has anything to do with it.

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Yixing mysteries

March 23, 2008 · 10 Comments

One of the very first thing I learned about yixing pots is that you shouldn’t use more than one type of tea in it. They say it mixes tastes as you season the pot, and will eventually lead to a pot that brews tea with weird combinations of flavours. This is something that I’ve heard repeated many, many times, and which I myself have told others before. However, I am increasingly skeptical as to the truthfulness of this claim, and whether or not such division is truly necessary.

I should first point out that I am not saying that all pots are equally suited for all types of tea. I do notice, for example, differences in my aged oolongs when I brew it with my black pot versus my zhuni pot. However, I am no longer sure that it is truly necessary to confine each pot to one type of tea, especially in some of the rather fine distinctions between, say, Taiwanese high mountain oolong and low roasted baozhong, to name a pair that can be distinguished from each other, but whose tastes are not too dissimilar.

I own a pot that is around 300-400ml in size which I occasionally use for lazy brewing of loose puerh of one kind or another, usually some wet stored stuff or the very rare cooked puerh. I haven’t used it for anything else thus far, but last night I felt an urge to drink some darjeeling all of a sudden, and pulled out some of the black darjeeling generously given to me by Mr. Lochan of Doke tea. It’s a fine darjeeling, sweet and mellow (and I think aged slightly since last year, when I got it). I brewed it in my pot, the same one that I’ve used all along for puerh. Did I notice anything funny that I could attribute to puerh? No, not at all.

Sure, one could say that it is probably because I haven’t used the pot enough for puerh yet, therefore it didn’t impart anything to my darjeeling that I could detect. It does make me wonder though, how often do you need to use the pot before it will start affecting the taste of the tea being brewed, and how much of that effect is dependent on the previous teas you’ve brewed in the pot?

My guess is we generally overestimate the amount of work that seasoning a pot does to the taste of the tea in the pot. Seasoning the clay certainly makes it look nicer, but I’m not too sure if it really makes the tea taste nicer in any meaningful way — or at least, a meaningful way that is detectable by most drinkers. If it takes, say, prolonged use over years with one type of tea for a pot to gain any sort of meaningful “seasoning” that will affect the taste of the tea (more than the pot itself would otherwise) then is it really useful to advice newcomers to tea to buy more than one pot? I have heard before that all of this is just a ploy by pot makers/sellers to sell more pots. It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but there’s no proof that it’s not true… or is there?

Mind you, all of the above is purely speculative. Yet sometimes I do feel that when somebody is led to believe that they must buy half a dozen pots for all the teas they plan to drink…. is that a bit much?

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