I washed mine, rinsed with hot water twice, after that I had put it in a clean inox kettle and boiled it on a hot plate for an hour, and after that I had put in a hand full of good quality tea leaves (TGY), and boiled it for another hour on very low heat, after that, I let it dry, this scraped of the pieces from the inside and opened up the lidhole, and the teapot took in the fragrance of the tea.