A Tea Addict's Journal

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?

As we all know, many brains is better than one when it comes to solving problems…. so I need your help 🙂

Along with the broken pot, I bought another one that turned out has a bit of a crack on the outside (didn’t see it because, well, it was covered in dirt). That’s not the real issue though.

Looks nice enough

Until you see the inside

And this is AFTER cleaning it with BLEACH. You don’t want to know what it looked like before — imagine a white covered interior that feels like it is caked on for ages. I have no idea what it is, or how it is so stubborn. I’ve already removed most of it, although you can see how it still has that brown base that makes the whole bottom sort of spotty looking.

How do I clean this thing?

I’ve heard you can use citric acid to melt things away like this, but I’ve never tried it. Aside from that…. what else can I do? I mean, I’m not sure if this pot is really that usable, since it is cracked (although it does not leak — cracking is only on the outside, strangely enough). Either way though, I’d like to at least have it be clean….

A new little thing came in the mail a few days ago

The owner of the pot clearly loved it very much, and used it very, very heavily

And so it took some damage over the years

But because of repeated use — it has the nicest patina I’ve seen in a while

Too bad it is broken… and has a hole in it to boot.

I’m not sure what I will do with it. I got it because it looked like really nice clay, and I wanted a reference pot — something to compare others against, and also, perhaps, something to experiment on. There are simply too many conflicting theories out there on zhuni, what it is, what it isn’t, etc. I think I now have some idea of it should be, but the variation out there makes it hard to say with certainty whether a pot is or isn’t real zhuni, especially, of course, if you only see a picture of it. In some ways, buying a broken pot might be the best bet of getting the real deal.

This one some of you might remember

It’s the pot that I talked about a few months ago as having a lid and body that are different in colour. It’s funny, because over time, I think the difference has become a little less obvious. There’s still a difference in tone, and you can probably see it in the picture, but if I didn’t tell you, it might have been easily overlooked.

One of the problems with buying old teapots is that sometimes they can come poorly seasoned or unevenly done. Not seasoned is not a problem, but when it’s uneven, it can be annoying and difficult to fix. Another common problem are things like mineral deposits on a pot, which can actually be extremely hard to remove. I have another pot that has some strange patches where the surface is almost oily. I don’t know what’s going on there.

Which, I suppose, is part of the fun. Seasoning new pots can be so boring 🙂

While I’m still unpacking and organizing things….

It’s missing the big one — one being used to brew Darjeelings, among other blacks. And come to think of it…. also one that I used to use for puerh but has been sitting in a box for quite some time now. Perhaps I should whip it out again…..

I do have too many teapots.

At the end of the day

I really shouldn’t line my pots up like that with cats around.