Yixing and Tea type

[Tencha]

Hello all,

I am very interested in the properties of yixing. Many use yixing for Oolongs, Reds (Blacks), and Pu-erhs. I really enjoy Greens, and was wondering if it would be pointless to brew them in a yixing pot. If so, would anyone be willing to recommend some beginners Pu-erh? Thanks!

-Tencha

[ImmortaliTEA]

Hello all,

I am very interested in the properties of yixing. Many use yixing for Oolongs, Reds (Blacks), and Pu-erhs. I really enjoy Greens, and was wondering if it would be pointless to brew them in a yixing pot. If so, would anyone be willing to recommend some beginners Pu-erh? Thanks!

-Tencha

Not pointless but you have to be EXTREMELY careful when choosing the type of yixing pot for greens. Firstly, the walls must be very very thin (so the thick walls won't "cook" the leaves giving a nasty burnt spinach taste). Also, it must be as highly fired as you can find (so the clay won't be quite porous enough to take away from aroma or high notes). Finally, the clay must be a higher density clay such as Zhu Ni, Xiao Hong Ni, or Modern Zhu Ni. If the pot fits this set of criteria it should make a good cup of green tea if careful consideration is taken with the steeping temperatures and times. (Unless in cases of extremely high quality green teas that can withstand/shine with boiling water, although even in this case it might be better to use a slightly lower temperature because of the extra heat pushed into the leaf from even this very dense yixing style). Personally I go back and forth between this and a gaiwan for greens, although I once used a small 120 ml glass teapot with strainer in the spout which made decent green tea but none of that matters now because I rarely drink green tea at all anymore (maybe 100 grams total each spring when they first arrive from picking). I have even heard of people using Duan Ni for green teas, but find this not to my tastes as I usually drink green tea for freshness & aroma and most examples of Duan Ni are "Aroma Hunters". Thanks!

ImmortaliTEA-

[Tencha]

Thanks for the quick reply!

[bagua7]

Why beginner's puerh? Start drinking the top stuff right away if you have the luck and resources to access it (very old aged raw puerh). Otherwise any of the raw cakes produced this or last year should have good Qi and are nice to drink (check out Yunnan Sourcing and Jas-etea, for example). Regarding ripe puerh: Menghai makes excellent cakes (V93, 08 Dayi adorned in red, 7572, 7452, 7562, etc.) and also the popular Goldel Needle White Lotus (a lot more expensive but an excellent ripe cake).

For any of the ripe puerh teas I personally prefer jiang po ni and old di cao qing Yixing clay pots. Aged raw seasoned zi ni or zhu ni (old - you'll open a can of worms with this one, or new) and for the young type, zhu ni again.

[gasninja]

While I would certanly recomend trying some aged puerh. I would not recommend going out and drinking the oldest best Puerh you can find right away. I would try some mid range aged stuff first. When I first gott into Puerh I went out and bought samples of allot of older famous cakes. While they where great I did not appreciate them the way I would after getting my feet wet a little more first.