TeaChat

I wonder if these would really be good for brewing considering they've been soaking up seawater for 150 years....

http://www.mingwrecks.com/sales/yixing.html

if i wasnt in a horrible financial situation right now i'd get one in a second.

i don't think i could ever brew tea in it though.. what an incredible collectors item

and by the way wow it looks like they did their homework on yixings, considering they are not tea hobbyists at all, their knowledge is impressive

There is an article in AOT mag #2 that talks about bringing these pots up from the wreck. Some say they will not be good for brewing as it may produce a rough tea but many experts disagree.

Wow interesting. I wonder.

shogun89 wrote: There is an article in AOT mag #2 that talks about bringing these pots up from the wreck.

Wow, General, you are turning into a resident expert! Thanks.

question : since the pots and the lids were strewn all over the place, i presume, how would they know what lid would fit which pot of similar shape? some to me, based on the pics, look to me that they had the wrong lid on them.

also, the salt water must have affected the physical/chemical nature of the clay after all these years.

heavydoom wrote:question : since the pots and the lids were strewn all over the place, i presume, how would they know what lid would fit which pot of similar shape? some to me, based on the pics, look to me that they had the wrong lid on them.

also, the salt water must have affected the physical/chemical nature of the clay after all these years.

Thanks Sal, Its the one reading that I actually do. And Heavy, the pots lids would most likely not be thrown about because when the pots where packed for the trip they where all put together in pots with natural padding between them like grass or something so though the grass would have decomposed the lids would most likely have stayed with their pots. But not to say the pots could have goten mismatched during the salvage.

I saw this too, but thought I'd just go w/ something a bit more normal

I wouldn't be too worried about the salt water affecting the pots. I'm not a master of material science, but I can't imagine what the water would be doing to the clay. Especially since we're probably talking about pretty cold water, being at the bottom of the ocean.

At least, nothing different than decades of brewing tea in it wouldn't do. If anything, some salt may have gotten embedded into the pots and maybe it would take a couple brews (or soaking in unsalted water) to get rid of it. But... other than that...?

The pots are cleaned when they come up using (I think) a electrolysis and a saline solution.

I have read that some believe they never make good tea.

Logically, brine composed mainly of sodium salt and sodium is one of elements with the smallest molecule size. So basically it can penetrate anything if it is given enough time (especially over years). I think the taste of brewed tea in those pots will be somewhat "weird" at the beginning of the usage due to this.
Theoretically it is possible to get rid of these mineralisation (precipitation and crystallisation of salt) effect. What the archaelog cleaned there is only the outer surface, but what remained in the micropore of the pot requires intensive cleaning and patience.

betta wrote:Logically, brine composed mainly of sodium salt and sodium is one of elements with the smallest molecule size. So basically it can penetrate anything if it is given enough time (especially over years). I think the taste of brewed tea in those pots will be somewhat "weird" at the beginning of the usage due to this.
Theoretically it is possible to get rid of these mineralisation (precipitation and crystallisation of salt) effect. What the archaelog cleaned there is only the outer surface, but what remained in the micropore of the pot requires intensive cleaning and patience.

Thanks for the analysis! Great!

hop_goblin wrote:Thanks for the analysis! Great!

I don't agree. I could write several pages explaining the principles of dissolving ionic solids and reversible crystal formation, but I don't think anybody really cares about that stuff.

Bottom line for me is that $320-$800 is a lot to pay for a pot, even if it's 150 years old. I'm sure plenty of antique collectors are drooling over the possibilities, whether they would brew tea in it or not.

Drax wrote:

hop_goblin wrote:Thanks for the analysis! Great!

I don't agree. I could write several pages explaining the principles of dissolving ionic solids and reversible crystal formation, but I don't think anybody really cares about that stuff.

Bottom line for me is that $320-$800 is a lot to pay for a pot, even if it's 150 years old. I'm sure plenty of antique collectors are drooling over the possibilities, whether they would brew tea in it or not.

I don't know exactly what the collector after from these pots. I hope kyleshen in this forum could help us with this part; he's the expert.

Dissolving ionic solids and reversing crystal formation could be done easily. That's what we learn in highschool. However I hope you'd take into account the capillary effect in the deposition. A capillary condensation (and thus also deposition) will create hysteresis, not all of the deposited molecule could be easily removed out of pores. Otherwise we don't have to replace any adsorbent after some TON.