How much does teaware contribute to tea quality?

[debunix]

I'd reorder just a little from Evan's list

Tea
Practice
Teaware
Atmosphere
Water

Practice can bring out more from a tea, but there are leaves that no amount of practice can make into tasty tea--at least, for my somewhat limited palate. Teaware can both add to the atmosphere by being beautiful and by affecting the taste and brewing properties of the tea, but it can't make up for lousy practice or leaves. I've not systematically explored different waters' effects on my tea, but I never notice a difference between tea brewed with tap water or bottled water when I'm at work. To be fair, though, the atmosphere at work might not be conducive to noticing the differences.

[Bok]

1. Tea. In my humble experience nothing is more important than the tea itself. Even the unpractised person will enjoy it more than an inferior tea.

2. Practice and Water. Are for me on the same level of importance.

3. On Teaware I am divided. Although the right teaware can enhance the taste of the tea, I think it is often overstated. I’ve had amazing tea, prepared in standardized teaware and in a place with absolutely no atmosphere.

4. Atmosphere.I think what is more important in terms of atmosphere is the amount of people. It can be stressful to prepare tea for others or be in the company of chitchatting people who do not focus on the tea, which makes it difficult to appreciate it yourself. Generally the less people the more I can enjoy my tea (there are lots of quotes on that in the tea classics as well.

To finish, a quote of Lu Tong and my favorite on tea:
“I am in no way interested in immortality, only in the taste of tea”

[theredbaron]

I'd reorder just a little from Evan's list

Tea
Practice
Teaware
Atmosphere
Water

The better the tea the more important water becomes. In your list i would put water directly under tea. Maybe your the tap water in your area is particularly good, but if you perform tests between different waters, you can taste the difference far more distinctly than different pots or cups.
For example, if you drink Long Ching tea with water from the Tiger Spring, which is very close to the plantations, you will see that no other water will brew such a good cup of that particular tea. I don't know why that is so, only that it is so.
Tea people in most countries with Chinese tea culture regularly go on expeditions trying to find the best possible water, and discussion about water is about as extensive as it is about tea and tea ware.

Ideally, all factors should harmonize - tea, water, tea ware, skill, heating source and kettle, atmosphere, etc. - like a symphony. And that takes a lot of time and practice.
The first step is getting your skill level to a point where hand movements become instinctive, so that you will not need to think at all anymore what you need to do, and almost could brew your tea blind. That means also to really get to know your tea ware, all its individual quirks. And that's only the starting point.

Just getting my tea ware collection to a point i was content with took me many years, maybe around ten years or more (and i collect for use, not for artistry). However, once a while i still add a bit here and there. At least my Yixing pot collection is at a point that any better pots would be far beyond my means.

[MarshalN]

I'd reorder just a little from Evan's list

Tea
Practice
Teaware
Atmosphere
Water

Practice can bring out more from a tea, but there are leaves that no amount of practice can make into tasty tea--at least, for my somewhat limited palate. Teaware can both add to the atmosphere by being beautiful and by affecting the taste and brewing properties of the tea, but it can't make up for lousy practice or leaves. I've not systematically explored different waters' effects on my tea, but I never notice a difference between tea brewed with tap water or bottled water when I'm at work. To be fair, though, the atmosphere at work might not be conducive to noticing the differences.

Um, if you think water ranks last, you really need to experiment with different water. Maybe like redbaron said you have good luck and have great tap water, but water is easily the most important thing after the leaves itself. Heck, think of it as the second ingredient in a cup of tea. Teaware, on the other hand, ranks dead last.

[NPE]

While I do suffer from a particularly bad case of TAD - exactly because lovely teaware enhances the overall experience significantly - nothing is more important to me than good water.
The water at my in-laws (previously Essex, now Cumbria) is ab-so-lutely grotty!!!
It tastes so badly of chlorine and God-knows-what-else, that it has even corrupted the kettle - a one-off dose of spring water does not help, the yuckiness persists.
English breakfast there is barely palatable, anything better than that would be a waste.
Bad water means that no matter how good or even brilliant the tea is, the end result will always be bad!

So my list is:
Water
Tea
Practice
Atmosphere
Teaware

Without practice, the tea will probably not be brewed correctly (unless you have a rare lucky break) and without the proper atmosphere (= tranquil and focused appreciation), the nicest teaware, including its beneficial effects on the taste, will remain unnoticed.

[wert]

Tea is basically water, flavoured by leaves. I agree with NPE. Good tea leaves with sewage is still sewage. Good water with so so tea leaves could still produced an acceptable beverage.

[debunix]

I do count myself lucky to live in places with decent tap water.

[paul haigh]

I have discussed this with other potters. There is something to "seasoned" teaware, as well as the porosity of unglazed pots. However, as a potter and a career chemist, some of what I see stated frankly defies the science of what is really happening.

The ergonomics enhance the experience (including heat management, comfort, how a piece dissipates aroma from the tea, etc). The aesthetics are a wonderful experience alone. In an actual double blind test, what is the effect on flavor? That remains to be seen.

[ethan]

Paul, Thank you for a well-worded, helpful post from someone who knows a "bit".... (I infer you kept it modest & restrained not to step on any toes.)

Posting on another thread a minute before, I mentioned Himalayan Orange, a black tea. I've used glazed teaware for preparation: 2 gaiwans & 2 teapots. I've settled on the pot which has the widest hole for me to pour down on the tea. A lot of hot water coming down strongly allows the wonderful aroma to be highlighted as the first steam arises from the leaves.

I don't "study" the effects of different teaware anymore (tried it a couple of years back), but when something like that aroma hits one so nicely, I "know" this is the pot for this tea.

[Noahwhiteman24]

I feel as if the order should be:

tea
practice
water
tea ware-atmosphere.

I put tea first because of my own personal experiences. As a gift during my recovery from a procedure that left me on crutches for a while, I received a large Teavana sample set which I now refer to as my "gateway tea". My favorite of the set was a tai ping hou kui of remarkable quality, which of course, they no longer sell .__. . It is very much worth noting that my primary brewing instrument at the time was a 25 oz enamel plate cast iron kettle, and that I didn't know a single thing about tea-brewery. However, the quality of the leaf seemed to compensate (And it stood up to water much too hot for a run-of-the-mill Chinese green) and created a brew whose flavor I cannot deny even today.

When given a lesser quality oolong to work with, it took me a long time to get the flavor right. I continuously burned it into an astringent, spinach-y mess. This is where practice comes in with the ability to make a mediocre tea taste acceptable. If one doesn't have any experience or tea knowledge, it can be easy to ruin even very good quality tea. I'm still conflicted as to whether this should go before or after water, because there are always cases of the highest quality teas being able to stand up to boiling hot water in a styrofoam cup and still turn out wonderfully. A dragonwell a friend of mine brought back from a trip to China comes to mind.

I put water third probably out of my own fortune. I live on Lake Michigan and as such I'm blessed with fantastic quality tap water, which to me tastes significantly better than bottled water for tea brewing and plain drinking due to the lack of the "plastic-y" flavor that bottled water has to me. I've had little experience with lesser water so I'm probably taking this for granted...

As for teaware, I think that it's roughly tied with atmosphere in terms of importance because the two draw off of one another. One could be brewing tea in a beautiful place, but I know that if I personally was drinking out of a cup that cooled too quickly or stayed too hot, or if my teapot was continuously burning me and spilling everywhere, I would have a difficult time enjoying myself regardless of the scenery. That being said I am a huge fan of pottery (and am an amateur potter myself) and feel much closer to tea I brew and drink out of handmade vessels from skilled craftsmen, as opposed to items made in a factory. I like to feel like my items have some soul and personality.

[yalokinh]

without reading anyone else's post, I would say it affects the tea minimally unless you have an unglazed clay pot, which MIGHT affect it depending on the clay. It definitely helps with ambience and generally makes the whole act of tea drinking better.

[guitar9876]

I like where this topic is going.
Here's my list
1. Water
2. Technique
3. Tea
4. My mood
5. Teaware
6. Atmosphere
Water is definitely first because tea is 99.9% water. If you're not brewing the tea correctly it can of course have a huge impact on the how the tea tastes. The quality of tea you're using... goes without saying. I feel that the kind of mood I'm in when start to make tea will have an effect on how I precieve the taste of a tea, maybe not so much the actual taste, unless I'm in a really bad mood or lazy and I brew the tea unskillfully. Teaware and atmosphere also, don't really change the taste of the tea that much, I feel they might effect how I precieve the taste of the tea.

[yalokinh]

I like where this topic is going.
Here's my list
1. Water
2. Technique
3. Tea
4. My mood
5. Teaware
6. Atmosphere
Water is definitely first because tea is 99.9% water. If you're not brewing the tea correctly it can of course have a huge impact on the how the tea tastes. The quality of tea you're using... goes without saying. I feel that the kind of mood I'm in when start to make tea will have an effect on how I precieve the taste of a tea, maybe not so much the actual taste, unless I'm in a really bad mood or lazy and I brew the tea unskillfully. Teaware and atmosphere also, don't really change the taste of the tea that much, I feel they might effect how I precieve the taste of the tea.

I like that list, I wonder what other people's lists will look like. Here is mine:
1. tea
2. water
3. technique
4. anything else: teaware, ambiance, etc...