I'm thinking about buying my first kyusu. I found a cheap pot by Tachi Masaki on Yuuki-cha >>
http://www.yuuki-cha.com/teaware/japane ... aki-teapot
My main problem is that I don't want to spend more than 45 Euro or 5400 Yen because I'd need to pay another 27% tax. With EMS shipping it would cost 5800 yen (2200 for shipping) and there's a 99,9% chance I'd need to pay custom fees and the total price would be around 7400 yen.
If I choose airmail the cost is only 4380 yen (there's no registered airmail to Hungary, don't know why).
Has anyone bought pot from Japan and used only airmail? How often do the pots break? (The postman doesn't throw packages into the garden so that's not a problem.)
I also considered this one >> http://www.yuuki-cha.com/teaware/japane ... aki-teapot
What I'd prefer is a pot with ceramic filter, around 250ml and darker colour. These banko pots look nice to me.
I also looked around on this site http://www.tokoname.or.jp/teapot/index.html. There are around 1000 pots in their catalogue (the 26th pot is nice). I don't really know how significant the clay material is. I read somewhere banko pots reduce astringency and bitterness but I don't remember if it was caused by reduction firing or the clay itself (or placebo effect
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
So far my favourite sencha is the Kagoshima Sencha-Ten from Zencha and I really like the Kama-iri cha though I don't know if it would be okay to mix them in one pot (unglazed).
My options are:
- wait till I can spend more (+EMS)
- order via airmail
- buy cheaper kyusu
Despite the steel mesh this one doesn't look bad to me either >> http://www.yuuki-cha.com/teaware/japane ... ame-teapot
I saw the selection on O-cha but the only one I liked has a 360° steel mesh and it's not easy to clean.
https://www.o-cha.com/tokoname-teapot-1 ... ory_id=164