Tea cup types

[Tead Off]

Well if you are presenting yourself as a cautionary tale I'm not buying it--your collection looks pretty good from here.

I think you're missing my point. There are two different processes going on when we experience anything. The first is the actual sensory stimuli. The second is the interpretation that we give it. The interpretation is based on accumulated experience (memories). All experience is subjective. No two people can have the same experience. We share thoughts with each other and when another's thought is similar to ours we accept or reject. This is how it is. Value is something arbitrary to the user, it is not inherent in objects.

The quest for the best is an idea. There is really no best. It's a way to entertain yourself and spend money. I'm not saying don't buy anything or don't experiment. I am saying that we could be more aware of what we are actually doing and how easily influenced we can become by others.

[Puerlife]

Sorry, Teadoff, I just want to talk about cups. You say differences in cups is all in my head. That baffles me because on the surface that's an absurd remark. Beyond the surface? I don't care. Sorry, but I'm not into philosophy. "The quest for the best" is your idea, not mine. I like to compare and experiment. That black cup costs between 10 and 20 ringgits, not exactly a waste of money.

[hobin]

Good discussion:
we are treading the "way of tea", it's just a way, not a destination: there's no ending point to be reached (an excuse to keep on buying teaware )
Of course there are highways (the right way to do things) that allow you to get a better tea in less time, and there are obscure paths that lead nowhere but maybe can show you some unexpected beauty.
(sorry for the OT!)

[kuánglóng]

Well, that's part of the beauty of it, innit ?
I'm with Tead on the awareness aspect of the cha dao - no need for uber-stuff for this old dropout over here.
Apart from the hows - who or better what is experiencing the whole affair anyway ?

One more OT apology.

[Tead Off]

Sorry, Teadoff, I just want to talk about cups. You say differences in cups is all in my head. That baffles me because on the surface that's an absurd remark. Beyond the surface? I don't care. Sorry, but I'm not into philosophy. "The quest for the best" is your idea, not mine. I like to compare and experiment. That black cup costs between 10 and 20 ringgits, not exactly a waste of money.

By all means, have it your way.

[Puerlife]

There seems to be interest for 'your way', too. Why don't you start a new thread?

[Fuut]

There seems to be interest for 'your way', too. Why don't you start a new thread?

Because there is no need to?

[Jaymo]

Sorry, Teadoff, I just want to talk about cups. You say differences in cups is all in my head. That baffles me because on the surface that's an absurd remark. Beyond the surface? I don't care. Sorry, but I'm not into philosophy. "The quest for the best" is your idea, not mine. I like to compare and experiment. That black cup costs between 10 and 20 ringgits, not exactly a waste of money.

I don't think he's saying the difference is in your head. He's saying there are differences and our preferences are based on the way we interpret our own experience (often through a filter of reading/hearing others' opinions.)

Thus, while there are various cups that all provide different stimuli, different drinking sensory experiences, you may decide you prefer one while I may prefer another. Reading about others' experiences/opinions can still be valuable, but in the end I can't just read the forums and say "Aha! This is the best teapot/cup/tea I should get only that!" The value is in the experience itself!

And more toward the topic of the OP, thanks for starting this thread. I have been thinking about teacups lately as well, so it is nice to read this discussion and see the pictures along with peoples' accounts of their experiences with them. I have been using the same set of relatively thick-walled glazed celadon ceramic cups since I got serious about tea. Lately I was thinking that I should try at least a few different options to see how it affects things.

[debunix]

I've not paid a lot of attention to the effect glazes & clay have on my tea drinking, but I definitely consider how I'll be brewing which tea when selecting a cup. If I'll be drinking a series of very hot, quickly gulped infusions of sheng puerh, I prefer a smaller flared cup with enough thickness to protect my fingers from the heat. For a sencha that will mostly be brewed cooler, and in larger infusions that may take several minutes each to drink, I need a larger cup, and may select one of the thinner, more narrow cylindrical pieces that are problematic with many just-off-the-boil infusions. And when I'm going to enjoy hot-start/cool-brewed oolong, volume is the biggest need. So I've found patterns that work for me, and give all the cups in the collection some time in use.

[Tead Off]

Sitting here with my wife drinking some cooked puerh cha, I decided to fool around with some cups since I wanted to see what my wife's impressions were.

cups.jpg (28.97 KiB) Viewed 1191 times

From left to right, Bizen, Petr Novak, Hagi cup from Seigan.

The Novak cup was the 'loser', knocked out by the Bizen, whose finish was the most noticeable of all, but the Hagi gave the smoothest, thickest feeling in the mouth. The flavor had little difference and none had the aroma that the fair cup had.

My conclusion?:Shape trumps all. You can see the shape of the Novak cup and how it differs in its 'flare'. It has none. But the fair cup, which is the tallest of all, left the most aroma in its emptiness. The Bizen and Hagi cups both have flare, both had differences in mouthfeel from the Novak cup, but drinking the tea for its flavor had little difference from one cup to the other for both of us. More huigan or more body was not a make or break difference for either of us. In fact, my wife disliked the noticeable huigan from the Bizen. She said it irritated her. I, otoh, felt it was stimulating. She would choose the Hagi for its overall feeling in her mouth.

[lysander]

I enjoy using volcanic clay cups with pu'er, really softens the tastes, especially with the young sheng.

I'm still new to pu'er and while some of you will recoil at the thought of softening the taste, the effect is something I like to have at my disposal not all of the time but sometimes.