Cleaning your Teapot

[Qoppa]

I was wondering if it's a good idea to clean my teapot with soap and water after each tea. I only have a single glazed porcelain teapot, so if I don't clean it, it seems like it will taint the taste of the next tea I make in it. On the other hand, I've also seen it advised not to clean your teapot, but rather to just rinse it with hot water. Will this actually do a good enough job to allow me to make greens, blacks, oolongs, etc. all in the same pot without destroying the flavours in the lighter teas?

Thanks

[wyardley]

Hot water should be adequate. You can use a gentle baking powder paste (not too dry) if it stains.

[mbishop]

With a glazed pot, soap and water should be fine, but I would just use hot water myself. And don't be like me and get lazy and leave the spent leaves in there until the next day when you are about to use it again.

After a while, you will probably still have stains/strange tastes building up. A mix of vinegar and water soaking in the pot for a while (with multiple rinses after) should clean it up good.

[Chip]

A lot will depend on you ... porcelain does stain as mentioned. If you use it all the time, rinsing everyday will eventually leave you with a rather stained pot. I personally like using vinegar to get rid of the stains.

Also the vinegar will remove scale that will likely build up with just rinsing ... depending on your water. Scale, hard water really seems to increase staining. Often the staining is actually tea stained scale. Since I have been using a descaling filter, graviTea from Adagio, I notice I have virtually no staining on porcelain and glazed pieces, woot!

[entropyembrace]

There´s no issues cleaning glazed porcelain with dish soap that I´m aware of...I hand wash my porcelain pieces with hot water and regular dish soap , it´s the unglazed pots that you need to be careful with what you use to clean them.

[Qoppa]

Thanks for the quick replies everyone! I just made a nice Darjeeling and then only rinsed my pot after finishing. We'll find out soon whether my next pot's taste has been affected!

[Chip]

Thanks for the quick replies everyone! I just made a nice Darjeeling and then only rinsed my pot after finishing. We'll find out soon whether my next pot's taste has been affected!

... should have no effect on taste ...