Water heated for Japanese tea, in a tetsubin

[Oni]

I wanted to gather some information, from those japanese tea drinkers, who drank japanese tea regularly and boiled water in electrical kettle and they bought a tetsubin, and tried the same teas with a unlined authentic tetsubin.
I remember that one member posted such a thing, but that was long ago.

[Kevangogh]

I drank tea from an unlined iron teapot at the Tsuen teashop. As you would expect, it was excellent.

[Oni]

I remember that a member on the o-cha`s greentea forum bought a tetsubin, and he made the same tea that he used to make with electric kettle, and when he made it with the water from the tetsubin it became greener, I read hojo`s explanation that it gives taste to water, but does it give a fuller body to tea, makes it sweeter. I know many members find it too expenceve to buy a tetsubin, shipping price is high, and there are only a few trustworthy vendors who sell these.
I am curious, is i worth to buy a tetsubin. I am close to buying a tetsubin from horaido teashop, it is Nara cast iron, bluish gray color, activated iron, bronze lid, inside untreated.

[Tead Off]

I remember that a member on the o-cha`s greentea forum bought a tetsubin, and he made the same tea that he used to make with electric kettle, and when he made it with the water from the tetsubin it became greener, I read hojo`s explanation that it gives taste to water, but does it give a fuller body to tea, makes it sweeter. I know many members find it too expenceve to buy a tetsubin, shipping price is high, and there are only a few trustworthy vendors who sell these.
I am curious, is i worth to buy a tetsubin. I am close to buying a tetsubin from horaido teashop, it is Nara cast iron, bluish gray color, activated iron, bronze lid, inside untreated.

Just do it. Don't think.

[guitar9876]

Yeah I've been thinking about tetsubins too, but it's going to be awhile till I can afford one. Horaido is definitely one of the places I would consider buying from. This article though http://the-leaf.org/issue%205/?p=43 has recently got me interested in antique tetsubins like those on Nadacha http://www.essenceoftea.co.uk/Teaware/Tetsubins.html

[Oni]

I guess those tetsubins that the leaf magazine presents are made in china, although old, I am not sure if they are made with same method as the japanese are, or I do not know if they are activated iron, and a lot is not known about the casting method, they can be rusty or damamged, and not to say that they are more expenceive than newly made japanese tetsubins.
I do not have experience with either, and I have only read about the effects of these tetsubins, I trust Horaido teashop, because another teashop owner trusted the for his teaware, whom I respect as a more advanced tea drinker.

[guitar9876]

Yeah sounds to good to me. Go for it!!

[tenuki]

Yeah I've been thinking about tetsubins too, but it's going to be awhile till I can afford one. Horaido is definitely one of the places I would consider buying from. This article though http://the-leaf.org/issue%205/?p=43 has recently got me interested in antique tetsubins like those on Nadacha http://www.essenceoftea.co.uk/Teaware/Tetsubins.html

I got the above japanese antique from a us dealer off of tracedero for under 200 after shipping and have been very pleased after some initial cleaning and re-seasoning. The taste is sweeter, the color more brilliant. I only use it for green tea though, other teas don't seem to benefit or actually taste worse (oolong and puerh).

My research at the time had been narrowed down to two new retailers: Artistic Nippon or Horaido, I'm certain there are others as well as yahoo.jp auctions.

In my estimation it is worth owning one if you commonly drink japanese green tea. I was looking for a smaller one and didn't care about providence or a box, etc, so I got one for pretty reasonable. One disappointment worth mentioning, for some reason it doesn't work on my portable induction stove. I have a cast iron round blank I can use to heat it on there, but it doesn't work on it's own.

[Oni]

When buying from Horaido teashop, look at the japanese version of the page (change it on the top of the screen) find the tetsubins, and I think there are 7 good looking tetsubins that are around 24000 Y, the ones that cost less are sand iron, look for a matte iron look, not the shiny ones, those are sand iron, those that are dark gray are activated iron, and those that have pronounced "arare" (hail) pattern are made using ceramic mold, the more pronounced the arare the better, ask for a picture from the inside of the kettle, if it is dark gray or bluish gray, it is good, if it is pitch black, it is either not good of heavily treated with urushi, but the owner wrote that urushi will come off, just boil 5 times for a few minutes each, discarding the water, and the kettle is ready to be used (the urushi will eventually wear off).

[Oni]

In a few days I will be the proud owner of a brand new tetsubin, I hope this will graduate me to a diffrent level of tea drinking.

[Jack_teachat]

You may have seen these before, but here are some good blog articles about owning/using a Japanese Tetsubin from the Half Dipper...

http://half-dipper.blogspot.com/2009/04 ... tekki.html

http://half-dipper.blogspot.com/2009/06 ... ction.html

http://half-dipper.blogspot.com/2009/07 ... subin.html

I have as of yet not taken the plunge!

Jack

[Janine]

We are only speaking of using a tetsubin as kettle, not teapot, correct?

I was thinking of doing such a thing but for Chinese teas which are what I tend to drink by far.

[Oni]

I received IT, I will post pictures as soon I get home.....

[Oni]

I have received my tetsubin, it really looks diffrent than on pictures, it is darker in color, it holds around 1.2 liter at max, so it can heat 1 liter of water, it weighs around 1.5 kg, this is how it looks when I brought it home>

It had a light grey powder inside, I washed it inside and outside, and with a tea cloth I wiped it clean, this is how it looks when it is cleaned>


This is the knob.




After I boiled 3 times 1 liter water, I noticed a very strange phenomenon, since with this KJ 600 watt burner it seemed to take forever to boil the water, I put my thermometer inside the kettle, I noticed that the temperature was on 96 C and there were no bubbles inside, I took the thermometer out of the mouth of the kettle and measured it while only touching the water, still at 96 C no bubbles, it seemed impossible, after I had put the lid on, I waited until it reached 98 C, and I lifted the lid it bursted into a rolling boil, I guess because of the pressure, so I boiled water 5 times in the kettle last evening and every time I noticed this effect, I will buy today a 1200 Watt single burner to try the tetsubin, I am curious about this no bubble thing.
I brewed Bi luo Chun, although it was the teawares first water after 3 warm up rounds, that took forever to heat up, the tea was creamy, soft, no bitterness, I use 3.5 grams to 200 ml water at 75 C, waited 5 minutes, the bitterness was completely gone, even if I drank below 1/4th of the cups volume, and at the second infusion, I used 95 C, pourpousely used too high temperature, and overbrewed, still it was lighter and creamy, no dry feeling in the throat. Next I treid my Xi Zhi Hao Dragon and Phoenix 2007, that pu became soft, and vibrant, and it was smoother than I remembered, soft and creamy, I do not see any problem using this new tetsubin for sheng puerh, next I thought why not try and oolong, I used 6 grams of DTA Da Yu Ling with my DHP teapot, and guess what this was better too, and I didn`t feel any lost aroma, on the contrary, the teapot heated up more than ever, this tetsubin gives off a lot of heat, I could barely hold the teapot, and of course it pours very precisely, so I can lift it as high as I desire, I also tried water plane directly from the tesubin, it was fresh, and slightly sweet, it wasn`t tired, and I needn`t mention that the tetsubin water didn`t make any bubbles.
Later I will try to prove my statemant, with my new heating element, and thermometer, I will post a picture with water at 96 C and no bubbles (P.S. I have to consult an engineer, my godfather who teaches thermodynamics).

[olivierco]

Nice buy.
You definitively can get water to 96°C without getting any bubbles, especially if you heat the water slowly.