Tuesday TeaDay 6/22/10 Fanatical TeaPotter?

[Chip]

Fanatical can be a good thing, right?

Welcome everyone to Fanatical Tuesday on TeaDay. Please share what is in your cup throughout the day.

Yesterday we kicked off a fanatical tea week! You can still vote and discuss yesterday's topic.

Today's TeaPoll and discussion topic...TeaPots...FTW! CURRENTLY, are you FANATICAL about matching your teapot to each tea? Or are you not concerned about this? Or somewhere in between? Has this changed over time for you???

I am surely looking forward to sharing TeaDay with everyone. Bottoms up, refill, REPEAT often.

[entropyembrace]

I have 3 teapots...2 are huge and only suitable when I have several guests so when I´m drinking by myself or with one or two others I use the same 250ml glass pot for everything.

I´d like more pots so I could match to the tea...but when presented with the choice of more leaf vs a new pot I always pick more leaf xD

[chittychat]

It can happen for a while like when I have large leave dan cong I use a yixing pot which has a large opening so I can insert the tea leaves w/o breaking. Usually things change when the tea is consumed and another combo of pot/tea might take over.

Just finished my afternoon tea with a Tie Guan Yin I had bought at the local Chinese grocery. One of those vacuum packed 7 g. I am very pleased by the quality of a nice flavor and naturally the price, 30 packs for $9.-. The unfolded leaves are almost all whole and no stems.

One can feel being taken for a ride when one looks at the prices for much lesser qualities of some tea merchants on the Internet. I have to go to China once.

[debunix]

I do have more than one teapot, and drink more than one tea.

I have never tried to 'match' a particular tea to a particular teapot--not to the degree of trying this lovely new oolong with several yixings to see which works best with it, or trying that sencha with these four different kyusus.

When at home with the luxury of a full array of brewing utensils, I often brew a class of tea in a particular pot: the japanese greens in the kyusu, the dark roast oolongs in the mini or small 'yixing' clay pots depending on how much I want to drink, that level of selection happens often.

At work, the pots are more limited, so the kamjove does nearly everything, but for gongfu in the evening the gaiwans see heavy use.

Even at home, the glass teapot often comes out, for anything except japanese greens, because I just like to watch the tea in it, or sometimes the gaiwans just feel right.

I haven't done enough head to head comparisons to see if I am actually getting any differences when brewing in oolongs and puerhs in the yixings vs the other pots. Can't say I'd miss the clay pots if they all vanished tomorrow.

So sometimes I pay attention to the 'rules', and sometimes not. I guess that makes me 'other'.

[Trey Winston]

I'm not at all concerned with that. I would pour tea out of an old oil can if I had to. But I prefer glassware, in all honesty.

Having some White Peony today. Craving oolong. Must make some.

[brad4419]

When it comes to yixing teapots I will only use one tea to that pot but ceramics or glass will get anything brewed in them.

[J.]

I don't offer each kind of tea a teapot.
I only prepare every tea in a gaiwan. I prefer gaiwans because they are cheap and, at home teawares have a life of 6 months.
Sometimes I prepare green, yellow and white teas in a glass teapot.

Japanese teas in a kuyshu, this teaware is expensive and has cracks into the walls, some people are a bit brutal with it. I'll try to buy an non aesthetic porcelain gaiwan, that will be stronger.

So, there is no special teapot for every tea, as some pople do with yixing clay teapots but there is a special form of teapot for every kind of tea.

It seems to be a bit the same as debunix, trying to match a kind of tea with a kind of teaware, without using clay teapots, that are too fragile for home use.

[Proinsias]

Most of my tea ends up in a gaiwan these days.

There are the occasional highly stressful moments in life though, like sniffing at an old oolong and wondering if my aged pu pot might be the better choice.

I've got one little yixing that I can't seem to match to anything but don't want to get rid of it as I love the look of it. One day it will find its path.

[EleanorJustice]

I suppose if I had more teapots I might match them to particular teas, but I've got a grand total of two teapots.

A lovely little glass number I received for my birthday, and the simple blue ceramic teapot in which my great grandmother was served her daily tea.

Thinking about it, I really ought to have more teapots. Hmm.

[JBaymore]

Japanese teas in a kuyshu, this teaware is expensive and has cracks into the walls, some people are a bit brutal with it. I'll try to buy an non aesthetic porcelain gaiwan, that will be stronger.

Hum....... can you please explain what you mean by the above highlighted part? As a potter I do not understand what you are saying there.

.....edit...... without using clay teapots, that are too fragile for home use. [/quote]

Are you saying that you think all clay pots are too fragile for day to day use?

best,

.............john

PS: Little nit picking spelling detail here........ the side handle Japanese teapot is spelled "kyusu". "Kyushu" is the name of the southern main island of Japan.

[JBaymore]

Middle of the road here.

best,

...........john

[Mrs. Chip]

In the Chip household, what do you think??? Well, I believe the answer may surprise some of you.

Seriously, I believe I would have to say the middle of the road answer, that frequently teas are matched to teapots. Mostly we drink Japanese greens, so our kyusu definitely get used the most!

However, many other styles of teapots are often adorning our TeaTable with various other types of teas.

This morning, a Kenji with Kanari served up in an AO SO!

Have a toTEAly wonderful day everyone.

[geeber1]

I'm not at all concerned with that. I would pour tea out of an old oil can if I had to.

I mostly drink blacks so usually use my PersonaliTea teapot. For larger leaf blacks, I use my Brown Betty so there's plenty of room for those leaves to stretch! I'm probably blaspheming here, but I also use my BB for oolongs. (Please don't shoot!) At work I use my IngenuiTea.

Last year I bought a Kyusu, but my husband comandeered it to use for Puerh. My yixing doesn't get much use because I'm usually brewing enough tea to get me started in the morning and don't have time to do multiple steeps. I have a gaiwan but need way more practice pouring from it!

No tea yet this a.m. Not sure what it will be.

[artmom]

I'm fanatical about looking at teapots; but not about using them for particular teas!

No tea yet this morning; but it will probably be Yunnan Golden Curl for the first cuppa'.

[Skippyandjif]

I picked "other" mainly because I did not own a proper teapot before this past Sunday, when I went to a garage sale and fell in love with a Japanese ceramic teapot with a wicker handle. I'm saving its first use for the first tea party (actual tea party, not the political event ) of the school year when college resumes in September, though. Right now, I measure out tea leaves and put them into a tall fine-mesh "cage" type thing that fits all of my mugs/cups perfectly, so I can do multiple steepings. I really want to get more teapots once I'm not going back and forth between college and home several times a year, though.

Pu-erh in my cup right now! Mmm.