TeaChat

I'm relatively new to the loose leaf tea world, and so far have pretty much stuck with the black teas that I'm more familiar with. I would like to try oolongs next, but I'm wondering about brewing it well. Reading through threads here it seems like many people use yixing pots to brew oolongs, but I haven't yet been able to find any that are both in my price range and in a design that I like. So, I'm wondering if it is unreasonable to brew them in a porcelain pot? The set I have my eye on is from enjoyingtea, and the website says that it has a 350mL capacity and an internal filter so there's no need for me to fill it all the way with water.

I know that it's ultimately up to me and the preferences that I develop, but based on your experience, does brewing oolongs in a porcelain pot yield good results? What do you think?

350ml seems pretty huge, but porcelain is fine for oolong. Many here (including myself) use porcelain gaiwans for oolongs. If you find yourself enjoying oolong, you might want to look into those.

Thanks for the reply. I agree that 350mL is larger than I would prefer, but am having a hard time finding anything smaller! It's good to hear that porcelain is fine, and I'll definitely look into procuring some gaiwans.

Maybe you would fancy any of the following a bit more.

Ou, several of those are very pretty. I've never used ebay before so it didn't even occur to me to look there. Thanks for the suggestion!

There's also this little porcelain pot from Tea Trekker

https://www.teatrekker.com/teawares/bone-china-teapot

Simple and inexpensive, and sized for 1 or 2 people, depending on the type of oolong. You can add some tea samples to the order, and have money left over for an yixing pot when you find just the right one.

I hesitated to post this as I am the seller of Hong Seong il's teapots so I want to say that I post this as a drinker, not a seller.

I use both Yixing, Chao Zhou, and Seong il's porcelain teapots for my oolongs. Occasionally, I'll use a gaiwan, but not often anymore for oolongs. The reason I bring up Seong il's pots and not generic porcelain teapots is the porcelain that Seong il uses is a naturally formed clay with minimal processing. This means that the iron content and other minerals found in the raw clay are left intact and not refined out to produce a perfectly white clay product. What I found for the tea brewed with this kind of clay is a more full bodied flavor that competes favorably with my more traditional teapots, Yixing and Chao Zhou. I have found the difference in porcelain makes a difference in the result of the brewed tea. The unrefined porcelain clays fell out of favor with the Chinese long ago and their influence over the Korean and Japanese are very evident and also the European export trade. Now, it is not easy to find unrefined porcelain teaware and I think it is to the loss of the tea drinking community that this is the case.

I recommended the TT pot as a good starter pot, but in fact I use a Seong Il porcelain pot for wuyi oolong. In addition to the difference in clay quality that Tead Off talks about, it's unglazed inside. Other porcelain pots that I've seen, including the TT pot and English style tea pots, are glazed inside.

Wow, I had not seen any of Seong Il's pots yet, they are so beautiful! Unfortunately, they are out of my price range right now, but maybe some time in the future.

JRS22, thanks for the suggestion of the tea trekker pot, I think that's exactly what I've been looking for. It's probably good for me to experiment in a glazed pot anyway, plus I can add a teacup and samples. I'll definitely post pictures and impressions once I get going.

Devoted135 wrote:Wow, I had not seen any of Seong Il's pots yet, they are so beautiful! Unfortunately, they are out of my price range right now, but maybe some time in the future.

That's what I thought about my teaware budget at first. Now I have a teapot, server, hobin and tray from Seong Il and there's a second pot on the way.

The samples at TT are good for several sessions so it's easy to determine if it's a tea that you want to stock.

I love porcelain teapots for oolong, but it's hard to find small and nice (and affordable) ones. I don't like the very thin types because they are usually expensive and I can imagine myself breaking one very, very soon

I've fancied the porcelain teapot on honza's avatar for a long time!

Also I've been watching on the celedon ones on Tead Off and Petr Novak's lists.

gingkoseto wrote:
...
I've fancied the porcelain teapot on honza's avatar for a long time!
...

He sells them here: http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/te ... apots.html

I saw some of them in a local teahouse and liked them a lot - cheap and good.

JRS22 wrote:There's also this little porcelain pot from Tea Trekker

https://www.teatrekker.com/teawares/bone-china-teapot

Simple and inexpensive, and sized for 1 or 2 people, depending on the type of oolong. You can add some tea samples to the order, and have money left over for an yixing pot when you find just the right one.

I ended up ordering this pot, a teacup and some samples from Tea Trekker, and then had to wait very impatiently to open them up on Christmas day! Luckily I also got a 120mL gaiwan and the oolong sampler from Enjoyingtea to tide me over for those couple weeks.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks again for the great suggestions! I'm loving all of my new teawares and have found a surprising love for "greener" oolongs. Maybe one of these days I'll even figure out how to post all the pictures I've been taking!

Devoted135 wrote:Maybe one of these days I'll even figure out how to post all the pictures I've been taking!

Please do! Let me know if I can assist you.

This topic may help or you can ask questions there as well. http://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=12549

Thanks for the link, Chip! Test post, I've never done this before. Here goes nothing!


First Oolong by Devoted135, on Flickr

Sorry for the picture quality, this is from my phone's camera.