Tea Set-Up Advice?

[caulfield]

All,

I have been drinking loose-leaf tea for over 5 years now. I have figured out the types of tea I like, but I feel like I need to upgrade--I have a lot of my original teaware, which was all pretty inexpensive.

At work, I have:
- an electric kettle
- an ingeninui-tea
-a ceramic pot (I broke the lid & the teapot was a TJ Maxx clearance one)
- a mug from Target

I drink a lot of black tea (usually yunaan) to wake me up in the morning. I usually make fill up the ingeniui-tea (16 oz), use that to fill up my mug (8 oz) and put the remaining tea in my ceramic teapot. But by the time I finish my first mug, the remaining tea is usually cold.

At home, I have:
-a gaiwan
-a ceramic pot (about 16 oz)

I usually put oolong in the strainer, fill it up, drink a cup and the remaining tea is cold.

My question is that if I want to upgrade my set-up for blacks and oolongs, what essential upgrades should I make? Any suggestions? I thought about a tea-cozy to keep my tea warm, but I wasn't sure if that worked.

[futurebird]

Tea cozies do work and if you like black tea you could go for fancy British stye brewing (do you use cream a sugar)--



Are these brass covers an American diner invention?

If you are curious about Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese tea traditions I've never really seen a cozy. In Gong Fu brewing one just pours hot water over the pot-- for this reason large bowl (tea boat) and/or a draining tea tray made of wood clay or stone is very useful.

Japanese teas tend to be very green so there isn't a big desire to keep the pot warm since they brew them a cooler temps.

But really watch some videos go to some tea shops and see what you fall in love with.

I love the whole gong method, it's great for oolong tea and pu'erh (which you should check out)

But, I won't say "no" of someone wants to make me British tea with a nice silver set and fresh cream.

Lastly there is American tea which is iced tea in a can. A big can.

[Joel Byron]

It sounds like you are brewing more tea than you need at one time. You could fill the Ingenuitea up only halfway, and just do another infusion when you want more tea. Or you could get a smaller brewing vessel. If you have a gaiwan at home, why not use it?

[hopeofdawn]

I would have to second the suggestion that perhaps you're making too much tea at once, if it's getting cold before you drink it. Also, is there a particular reason why you're doing the two-step process of brewing in the Ingenui-tea and then pouring it into the teapot, rather than just brewing in one or the other and pouring it straight into your mug/cup? That will add to the heat loss as well.

My suggestion--especially if you don't want to invest in a ton of teaware you may or may not use right away--would be to invest in a smaller teapot, and brew only enough for one mug at a time. Or for several smaller (hotter) cups, if you want to go that route. I've also found that cloth tea cozies work well even for non-western pots--I use them often for my very small 100 ml Korean and other pots when I'm doing long steeps, to keep the heat in, and they work quite well.

[caulfield]

Thanks for the advice. What kind of smaller tea pot would you recommend for yunnan black teas?

[Chip]

Thanks for the advice. What kind of smaller tea pot would you recommend for yunnan black teas?

Pandora's box opens ...

[steanze]

if I remember well Charles suggested a tall zini pot for black tea some posts ago...

[futurebird]

Thanks for the advice. What kind of smaller tea pot would you recommend for yunnan black teas?

Depends on your budget here are a few options:



$30 150ml
This is a simple functional teapot that will be useful no matter what you end up drinking in the future.



$280 110ml
This is a Yixing pot for drinkers of Chinese tea gong fu style. --not really for black tea as much as puerh and oolong.



Another Yixing pot. Slightly less high-quality clay and a bit bigger (I dare anyone to tell the difference in clay quality between these two post based on taste alone, though) $66 140ml



$44 240ml
Here is a smart glass brewing vessel that's perfect for work. The larger size tends to make more sense in a work context. It will keep tea warm for about 2 hours (I have one)


So you can see there's a lot to choose from!