Besides it not being an authentic handmade piece of work, what are the downsides to a teapot being made from 'mud' instead of Yixing clay?
I definitely like the look of the second one. I like simple teapots, and I've been wanting a black one for a while.
Shogun, my point is just to be aware of 'clay' cos yixing teapot market today seems to be a chaos somehow. Good market is composed of righteous seller and informed customer, and yixing teapot not made from yixing clay isn't yixing teapot afterall.shogun89 wrote:WOW. What a popular thread this turned out to be! Lots of controversy of whether they are fake or not. The good thing is that chrl42 stated that real yixing's are made in Jiangsu, and sure enough if you scroll down the page with the pots, thats where they are produced. whether they are high quality hand-made pot. . . i doubt it, but they seem to be authentic and for $11 you cant go wrong. not to mention they are beautiful pots.
I am sure YSLLC's teapots are wonderful along with their tea, especially I like their way of having products at fair price.
That one's not simple I think. But besides beauty of color of yixing clay and feel of touch, yixing clay has high thermal conductivity than any other clay known to exist.Jagori wrote:Besides it not being an authentic handmade piece of work, what are the downsides to a teapot being made from 'mud' instead of Yixing clay?
I definitely like the look of the second one. I like simple teapots, and I've been wanting a black one for a while.
And that's a one of key component to brew tea in a right way.
Second, yixing clay is a clay that 'breathes'. Which absorbs bad smell left on tea and make it much milder taste than it used to be. It is a teapot that gets better as time goes by, yixing teapot used for a decade will brew just plain water taste like tea brewed in that teapot.
Also yixing clay is known to be healthful to body whereas mud-using pot could affect body in bad way because they contain hazardous chemicals for color-effect and so on. And after caring of each use it will surface unbelieval natural gloss that amuses many of yixing followers. Taking care of teapot(yang hu)is one major labor that yixing owner must go through.
There are 2 ways of yang hu, yixing style and taiwanese style.brandon wrote:Could you elaborate on yang hu?
Yixing style using a tea towel when pot's heated. But should be aware of no finger oil or tea oil gets assimilated into a towel and towel should be boiled to clean frenquently.
Taiwanese style is using a tea brush. That you dip a brush in tea water and brush on the surface of pot.
Yixing should be cleaned every time of each use with hot water. Tap water can be absorbed to the surface so should be watched out.