After year with my gaiwan...yixing time?

[nsudharsanan]

Hello all,

So I lurked and vaguely posted on this forum a while back when I first got into oolong tea, and as per the recommendations of pretty much everyone I got myself a nice gaiwan and learned how to make tea in that particular vessel.

Well it has been a while now and I have tried a whole mess of oolongs and have been doing it with the aid of my trusty gaiwan. Now that I have some familiarity with oolong teas, I am considering a yixing pot for a singular special tea. I know that quality of the yixing goes a long way here...which is why I find it funny that knowing what I know I went and bought a 20 dollar pot from Wing Hop Fung here in Los Angeles.

My questions are:

1. Should I even bother with yixing pots at this price point?

2. If so, which oolongs would be best suited to this pot? (it appears to be red clay)

I am hesitant about using greener, more floral oolongs in a yixing pot but I could be mistaken...my understanding is that the best teas for a pot like this would be darker wuyi and ob teas.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

~Nikkil

[brandon]

Price and color do not tell us much about a pot ... but a photo helps

[nsudharsanan]

As requested:

[brandon]

Looks like you might have gotten more than you paid for. It is high fired, and probably isn't modern Zhuni, but is made to look like it. Good for green oolongs.

OB would probably be great, Wuyi depends on your personal taste. I'd drink it in this kind of pot, but I also like tea to kick me in the face. Some people prefer a bit of rounding from a courser or lower-fired clay pot.

[David R.]

There are a lot of rules for tea/teapot pairing. I find that trying every kind of tea you've got in a new teapot, especially the ones you know quite well, is a good way to proceed. It will tell you how it reacts to different notes (floral, honey, earthy, etc) making the choice easier in the end.

As Brandon says, it all depends on personal tastes.