Why aren't small 30-120ml teapot not manufactured new often?

[futurebird]

I feel it's partially because Americans have stronger stomachs averagely. It's not physically possible for everyone to handle high ratio, if if they want to.

LOL- in other words we eat any damn thing and often too much of it.

[futurebird]

I just want to add that I think it might just be that we have been told what is "wrong" - with western brewing styles:

* Your pots are too big.
* You don't use enough tea for the water.
* etc.

And since there's not much tea culture you have to take what advice you can find and try to learn from it. So, I think it's easy to take rules too seriously. I do this some of the time-- Even in NYC it is limited where I can go to get tea and watch it being brewed by experienced people.

The tea culture in my family is mostly about southern iced tea, herbals for medicine and tea for when you're sick...

So how to learn? If someone says "you should try this" I'm likely to stick to it.

It might not be as important as we think it is.

Yet, then these things become their own traditions. Maybe in 100 years there will be a "western gong fu" -- it is evolving now.

[yanom]

But for the leaf/water ratio, I feel it's partially because Americans have stronger stomachs

I suspect it's stronger palates as much as stronger stomachs.

I know it's boring to compare tea things to wine but there are some striking similarities : traditionally Bordeaux was drunk aged, but Americans in general prefer it young with big strong primary fruity flavours. Same is true for puerh, kind of.....

Doesn't mean there's a right or wrong, of course. But a casual reader of this forum and of the English-language tea blogs would assume that the way of drinking puerh described there is the same as the way it is drunk in China.

[yanom]

Some of the time I fill the fairness cup which takes 4-5 infusions with a 40ml pot.

Is there a difference in how the tea tastes doing it this way, and simply using a bigger teapot with the same amount of tea, but letting it steep a bit longer? A thickish yixing ought to retain the heat for that time, so you're not losing out there. Shouldn't the resulting soup from a 120ml pot be the same as when you put three consecutive infusions from a 40ml pot into a fairness cup?

It's not a rhetorical question: I don't know the answer. Part of me thinks that by making the first proper steeping three times as long you'll get different flavours out of the leaves than if you do three short infusions one after the other. But that's just a guess, and I don't think it's necessarily a logical or correct one.

[futurebird]

yes IMHO there is a big difference in taste... not always a bad one. for young puerh long steeping times can make it biter, but biter can be good.

[SilentChaos]

I'm not saying it's mysterious for me to see people using small teapots of 120ml or even 90ml. But it's a little mysterious for me to see people looking so hard for small teapots of 50ml or smaller. ... Yeah I think price of tea, amount of tea, companionship all play a role in this phenomenon. But besides all this, I feel there is still a little mystery left.

Hear hear! You can say that again!

[tingjunkie]

I'm a bit surprised no one has chimed in regarding the size of the pot as related to the type of tea. I would never waste my time brewing green TGY or gao shan in a 40ml pot, since those expand so much, but when I brew high fire TGY, I like to nearly fill the pot and crush some leaf too. For this a 40ml pot is perfect.

Very expensive aged puerh is another tea I might make in a 40-50ml pot too. It won't expand all that much, and it helps conserve the tea. This has been discussed at length here, but drinking more short infusions out of a 1/2 full pot will give an extremely different experience than less longer infusions in a 1/4 full pot of double the size. For me, 3g of 30+ year old puerh in a 120ml pot is a crying shame.

[gingkoseto]

I'm a bit surprised no one has chimed in regarding the size of the pot as related to the type of tea. I would never waste my time brewing green TGY or gao shan in a 40ml pot, since those expand so much, but when I brew high fire TGY, I like to nearly fill the pot and crush some leaf too. For this a 40ml pot is perfect.

Very expensive aged puerh is another tea I might make in a 40-50ml pot too. It won't expand all that much, and it helps conserve the tea. This has been discussed at length here, but drinking more short infusions out of a 1/2 full pot will give an extremely different experience than less longer infusions in a 1/4 full pot of double the size. For me, 3g of 30+ year old puerh in a 120ml pot is a crying shame.

For your style, I would totally understand it. I was mainly puzzled by the "trend" that there seem to be many people who are looking for small teapots. I wonder if they all have similar style as yours.

My style is quite different from yours. For a lot of teas in oolong and puerh range, I use similar amount of tea in weight, although they may fill the pot differently due to the leaf shape. And I usually don't fill the pot with dry leaves no matter what. For expensive teas, I would either not buy it or not hesitate to use it in a 120ml teapot with normal amount. But most of the time I don't buy it, so I know it's easy for me to say I don't hesitate to use 120ml teapot.

[theredbaron]

For a lot of teas in oolong and puerh range, I use similar amount of tea in weight, although they may fill the pot differently due to the leaf shape.

I would suggest not to be hung up on weight.
I think water to leave ratio is much more important. Every tea needs its own ratio (combined with water temperature, duration of infusion, etc). Personally - i never weigh my tea for drinking (and i have in all my years here in Asia never seen anyone doing that - the first time i came across this concept was here on the internet), but look how filled up with leaves my pot is.
Some of my Pu Erh's, for example, need a higher ratio, and others, while initially weak, develop over the brews very strong, and need a much smaller initial ratio.
Same is with my Yanchas - usually my top Yanchas need far less leaves than my every day Yancha.
Weight can be deceiving. Every tea needs to be looked at its own. Each category has different ratios, but also different quality levels have their own optimal ratio as well.

[SilentChaos]

For me, 3g of 30+ year old puerh in a 120ml pot is a crying shame.

I see people here do this all the time....roughly 4 to 6g in 100ml pot though....same even with 50s pu. Though these are people who drink to the end of every tea.

[yanom]

SilentChaos, these are serious tea-drinkers right? And they figure what they're doing is pretty normal?

[gingkoseto]

For a lot of teas in oolong and puerh range, I use similar amount of tea in weight, although they may fill the pot differently due to the leaf shape.

I would suggest not to be hung up on weight.
I think water to leave ratio is much more important. Every tea needs its own ratio (combined with water temperature, duration of infusion, etc). Personally - i never weigh my tea for drinking (and i have in all my years here in Asia never seen anyone doing that - the first time i came across this concept was here on the internet), but look how filled up with leaves my pot is.
Some of my Pu Erh's, for example, need a higher ratio, and others, while initially weak, develop over the brews very strong, and need a much smaller initial ratio.
Same is with my Yanchas - usually my top Yanchas need far less leaves than my every day Yancha.
Weight can be deceiving. Every tea needs to be looked at its own. Each category has different ratios, but also different quality levels have their own optimal ratio as well.

I was actually talking about guesstimation of weight. I don't do weighing at all for tea drinking - nor do I have any other scientific method to estimate the amount of tea. You don't see a scale in a Chinese kitchen, or tearoom

[bagua7]

This is what I don't understand.

What I don't understand is why you are opening this thread.

Two of Jing Tea Shop's "Xiao Pin" pots are now gone because of your action.

[futurebird]

This is what I don't understand.

What I don't understand is why you are opening this thread?

Oh SO sorry lol.

[tingjunkie]

Those pots on Jing have been sitting there for about a month I think. Even a bold sloth could have snagged those before this thread happened.