new Yixing teapot

[jogrebe]

Quick question about new yixing teapots for everyone who has experience with them an puerh. The yixing pot I ordered arrived yesterday and I'm just drinking my first of puerh brewed in it and I'm wondering how much the yixing clay should affect the taste of the tea or if I just didn't prepare the pot properly before using it. As I can taste a slight difference but I'll have to have a few more cups to know if I think its for the better or not. Anyway I remember a few months ago on teachat someone (I forget who) told me not to worry about/scared away about seasoning the pot as it merely speeds up what happens naturally and to just make sure you wash it out well before using it. Anyway I'm wondering what is normal in terms of taste difference when one has their first tea brewed in yixing teaware and whatever or not I might not have cleaned out the pot well enough first.

[rabbit]

well first of all, DID you season the teapot? and how/for how long? I can't really remember, but I think I might have tasted the clay at first with mine as well, as long as you keep using it often I'm sure the taste will go away quickly. As for the differance in taste between tea prepared the regular way, and tea in a yixing pot- I read that the yixing pot brings out the flavours of the tea more (not just after being seasoned either, it has something to do with the pourus nature of the zisha clay).

[jogrebe]

No I did not season the pot in the traditional sense of boiling on the stove in a pot of water with tea leaves but I did wash it out in what I think was a very through matter. I pretty much started out by rinsing it out with boiling water a few times and then I used hot water and lightly rubbed the inside when it was filled with water and then proceeded to rinse out the whole thing a few more times. When I first started the water came out slightly cloudy but when I stopped it was pretty much clear.

Anyway I checked and it was Marlene that told me that it is not necessary to season a yixing pot in the Bamboo Pu Erh and Golden Melon Pu Erh thread:

When you get it, wash it well. Don't worry overly much about 'seasoning' it. All you're doing when you season a pot is hastening what happens naturally. You know that black crap that builds up on the inside of your pot when you don't wash it for days and days (or am I the only one...) That's what you're trying to accomplish with a yixing. So never ever soap it up! Rinse it under running water and wipe with a cloth. Also, some cross use is common. But whatever you do, don't brew up a scented or flavored tea!!!! I had jasmine flavored oolong for a month!

Anyway those are the instructions that I followed from memory for my pot and I'm guessing that its only a matter of time before Marlene finds and responds to this thread given her interest in both Puerh and Yixing pots.

[procarel]

I'm sure after you brew a few pots of tea any off taste will disappear. When I seaoned my Yixing pots I think I boiled them for a few hours with just clear water and scraped any clay particles out with a chopstick. Then I brewed a strong pot of the tea I was going to use it for and let it sit for an hour or so and threw that tea out. Gave it an additional rinse. What you are doing will probably accomplish the same thing, just take a little longer.

[Warden Andy]

Seasoning isn't that important because it get's seasoned after every cup of tea, but seasoning will get rid of that clay taste so you can enjoy the first cup of tea after seasoning it. When I first got my Yixing teapot, I didn't really know much about it, and didn't do a good job of cleaning it out. So my first several cups didn't really come out that good. It went aways with some use though.

Recently, after my switch from red tea to pretty much every other kind of tea, I tried re-seasoning the pot for wulong so it would still get used. I decided to take it seriously and boil the pot for several hours. At night when I pulled it out, it appeared that boiling the pot brought out all the impurities in the clay. It looked like it had white rust on it, although it went away by risnsing off the pot.

So you might want to consider boiling it to clean it more thouroughly.

[Marlene]

Procarol and Andy pretty much hit the nail on the head there. After three or four uses, there should be no problem.
You can also try the method procarol used if it continues to be very clay-y tasting. What ever you do, don't leave the leaves in the pot more than overnight (i wouldn't even recomend that, although i do it on occasion). Much more than that and you'll get mold and ruin the pot.

[jogrebe]

I'm sure I did a very though job of rinsing out the pot and I would not say that its a clay like taste to the tea, although now that I think about it it may be a lack of a metallic taste that I may have grown used to as I just realized that the Puerh that I drank out of my yixing pot today was the first that I've drank that did not have any contact with metal. I previously brewed using either a SwissGold infuser, to which the gold plating has started to wear off exposing the stainless steel below or a tetsubin (Japanese cast iron teapot). Regardless whatever the cause if it is from the pot or from what is missing I have decided after a few cups that the yixing brews better tasting Puerh than my tetsubin or my SwissGold infuser in a mug.

[Marlene]

Isn't it funny the little things that effect (affect? I think it's affect...I'm usually fairly good at that one, but i'm stumped today) the way we taste our tea?
So, you may have posted this before, and I missed it, but do you have a picture of your pot? Could we get some specs? How much was it? Where did you get it, ect ect.

[yresim]

Isn't it funny the little things that effect (affect? I think it's affect...I'm usually fairly good at that one, but i'm stumped today) the way we taste our tea?

You are right: it is affect.

Affect = verb
Effect = noun

~Yresim~

[jogrebe]

Sure thing, its a 13.5 oz (400 mL) yixing pot with a bamboo design on one side and what I believe is a poem in Chinese on the other side. I know its a little on the large size for a yixing pot but I wanted something that I could also use to make tea for a group. So far I've only been filling it up 2/3's for my tea mug.



Also to go with it I split an order of puerh cakes with my grandmother, who is also a puerh drinker thanks to me, which arived the same day as my yixing pot (ordered from tentea.com).

[MarshalN]

Not a bad looking pot, but that's kinda big! Even 2/3 it's still a lot of tea for one person... but I guess if you want something that can serve many then you're kinda stuck.

If you want it to season better/faster, instead of rinsing it out with water, pour hot water while the tea leaves are still in there (but which you aren't going to drink). Then, use that infusion (or two of them, to get enough liquid to rinse your pot) to wash out your teapot. That's what I do, and in effect it covers your teapot with tea instead of water when you're done cleaning. Remember to leave the pot open when it's drying.

[jogrebe]

Not a bad looking pot, but that's kinda big! Even 2/3 it's still a lot of tea for one person... but I guess if you want something that can serve many then you're kinda stuck.

Oh don't worry about the size, I'm a compulsive tea drinker and on average I drink around a gallon of tea a day. The reason why I fill it 2/3 of the way is so that it will all fit in my mug and then over the course of an hour or two I'll reinfuse the leaves 3-5 times. Personally I mainly drink Puerh in the evenings on most days I'll go through around two sometimes 3 sets of Puerh leaves in my pot.

[illium]

if you post a picture of the teapot's other side, i'll try to translate it for you..

-troy

[jogrebe]

if you post a picture of the teapot's other side, i'll try to translate it for you..

-troy

Thanks for the offer.




BTW click on the images for full sized versions that should be easier to read.

[Phyll]

Can you fix a chipped Yixing pot? I just did it accidentally last night. It's on the very top button of the lid, right where the air intake hole is. Very very small...almost not noticable, except to me...it's like a big crater in my brain.