Questions about my yixing

[sharpdart]

Three years ago when I was in China, I bought a small yixing tea pot In Yangshuo after falling for Chinese tea. I knew nothing about this kind of pot and what it was for - I figured the size wasn't too small and it looked nice. And it cost somewhere in the $30-40 range.

When I returned, I used it to make green oolong and jasmine green teas, not really knowing what I was doing, and emulating the gongfu tea service as much as I could. Eventually, it ended up on the top shelf of my kitchen cupboard where it stayed until this past winter.

In the last couple of months, I have fallen for tea big time and have been on an amazing journey as I learn more about the different teas I like. When I started reading about yixing teapots, I was fascinated, so I did my best to season the pot according to verdant tea. I choose to use only green oolongs for this pot while acquiring a kyusu for my sencha, a ru kiln gaiwan for my sheng pu-erh, and a glass "yixing" style pot for mostly everything else.

My question now is now that I hardly ever drink green oolongs (I love them, but only once in a great while), could I re-season this pot and use it for something else I drink more of? And given the price range that I paid, does it even matter that I re-season, since the clay is probably not the greatest quality? The size of the pot is kind of large for one person, I'm realizing. It's about 150ml, which may be great for Chinese greens. I'm not sure what to do, since it's hard seeing this pot go unused when it has so many sentimental memories of a great trip and for igniting a new passion.

[theredbaron]

Yes, of course you can brew other teas in your pot. No pot will be destroyed if you change teas.
If you have many pots you will - by testing different teas - find out which tea the pot likes best, and then stick with the choice in the end.

I have a pot that initially i bought for Wu Yi teas, but something was always missing. It started to sing though when i changed into aged sheng, and now use it only for that.

[tingjunkie]

"Resetting" the pot is quite easy. Just boil the teapot in a large pot of fresh water for an hour, change the water, and repeat. Just make sure the teapot is resting on something in the bottom of the pot and not bouncing on the hard bottom as it boils. I use a folding metal veggie steamer basket myself, but a clean hand towel will work too.

To really finish off the resetting process, you can boil spring water and let it sit in the teapot overnight a few times.

Have fun!

[tenuki]

I just use a new pot for different teas until what it does well emerges. If nothing ever emerges I get rid of the pot. I only reset a pot once when some bad shu left it unusable.