TIM wrote:That's a classic example of good yixing clay. Taking out the poor character and brighten up the good. Some made the fishy pond of cooked pu disappear, some mellows out the harsh fire/roasting, and some just absorb the aroma of one tea and make it even better the next session.... Congrats on finding the fun of good yixings. Cheers -T
Yes, it becomes more fun than before. I've tried to use zini and zhuni but they don't reduce the astringency and harshness very significantly as this one. The old Zhuni also seasons very fast but never for other clay. I'll post the seasoned zhuni's pic some other day.
ck2998 wrote:I noticed that the inside of Chen's pot, when left to air dry after use, dries up pretty quickly, even in a tropical environment.
Is that an indication of the quality of the clay?
I am not sure, but I guess it is a sign that the clay is porous (which is the desired effect). The logic is similar to drying a surface by absorbing the water into porous cloth. I'm sure the pot is very porous because even my pot was fired about two weeks before shipping, bubbles rose from couple of spots on my pot for couple of minutes when I soaked it in water. Charlie has mentioned that water dries up fast on a surface of yixing clay as well. May I ask which clay did your pot is made of, if you don't mind?
Oni wrote:Purple clay is known to reduce astringency, banko is made of the same purple clay that yixing teapots, and I noticed it do reduce astringency as well, and to test if a yixing is good for a type of tea or not, try to compare it to a gaiwan of the same size and with the same amount of leaves, if the yixing makes better tasting tea, than go ahead and use it for that type of tea, and don`t forget the "showers" and "water baths", with a gaiwan you cannot do these tricks.
I've tried to use a gaiwan to compare it and it does give a contrast result. I'm afraid I'm not accurate enough because the gaiwan I used is thick, but not as thick as this pot and most of other yixingpot. You're right, I can't shower it, but during the comparison I didn't shower the pot during steeping either, maybe the thickness also plays significant role, but don't know to which extent.
Hey, banko is interesting as well, may be some other time. Toru-san of artistic nippon has been one of my best source of japanese teawares as well as donabe, but the custom cost paid just to clear the item is too immense (19% of product price VAT + 7% of product (inclusive VAT) plus shipping price yield about 33% extra cost). His donabe is really really good!
shuipin! 
