Advice on Yixing teapot artist, purchase and Longjing tea

[tthouse]

Hello

I have just recently entered the world of Chinese tea and i am simply fascinated by it. I have fallen in love with Yixing teaware and Longjing dragon tea.
I am not a big fan of glass so i am using the kongfu preparation when making my tea, trying to bring it down to an exact science for the perfect cup including temperature control and all. My wife has enoyed shared a cup of tea with me and so my small Yixing teapot isnt enough, i am looking to purchase another online for a budget of 200 - 300 USD but i would like to find a recognized artist from Yixing, would you have an suggestions on which artist and what website?
Also, i have attached images of my current Yixing, would anyone recognize the artist?
Thank you in advance for your help.
TThouse

[BW85]

What size in ml or cc is your current teapot? Essenceoftea.com just added a 175ml pot to their store for a mere £60 which is roughly $100. From a well known studio and good quality for the price. Most people would consider 175ml a large pot

[steanze]

Hi!
I really like both Longjing and yixing teapots, but for my personal taste they don't go together very well - I find that yixing teapots absorb some aromas of the green teas reducing their complexity. If you don't like glass, have you considered using a porcelain teapot or gaiwan for Longjing, and using yixing for other teas (like pu erh or yancha)? These teas are also more suitable for gongfu style because they can last for more infusions, showing how the flavor and aroma change from one infusion to the next.
If you really want to use an yixing pot for green tea, I would try to get a hongni or zhuni pot, that is not too porous, to hopefully reduce the amount of aroma that is absorbed. The other issue to consider when using a yixing pot for green tea is that the high heat retention of yixing clay could lead to "overcook" the leaves - so it becomes particularly important to pour in water at an adequately low temperature.

[tthouse]

BW85, the pot is 100ml.thanks

steanze, good points, i dislike porclean though even more than glass. I did find this explanation on wikipedia, not sure if it is accurate but i found a few other sources on the net that confirmed the same.

"Although it is common practice nowadays to steep Longjing tea in porcelain or glassware, the real taste profile of a finer Longjing is achieved only by using a genuine, slightly porous, Yixing clay teapot, which since the beginning, was popular exactly for preparing green tea well."

This confirms your point about being more porous, here is an image of the pot i am using. I use 75 - 80 degrees water. I do find it does get overcooked if i use anything higher or for longer time than 1.5 minute first brew, 2 next and so on.

[tthouse]

slightly less porous i meant

[kyarazen]

btw just for interest sake, yixing used to have a criteria of 0.5% porosity (based on water absorption). other clays such as CZ hongni can have 6-7% porosity...

[bagua7]

i dislike porclean though even more than glass.

"Although it is common practice nowadays to steep Longjing tea in porcelain or glassware, the real taste profile of a finer Longjing is achieved only by using a genuine, slightly porous, Yixing clay teapot, which since the beginning, was popular exactly for preparing green tea well."

I used to think like that too...until I rediscovered recently how much the stinky clay is capable of stealing some of notes and flavour of a good tea. So back to the good old bone China gaiwan and the joys of fully enjoying the teas I drink the most: Taiwan gaoshan, dan cong, raw puerh and some Chinese greens. I'm lying a bit I still use Yixing but sparingly: one 80s pure di cao qing for dan cong (I just happen to like this shuiping pot and acts like porcelain so no loss) and 2-3 Yixings for sheng pu. The rest of the teas go straight to gaiwan.

That wiki entry was most likely added by a Yixing pots vendor.

[tthouse]

Thanks, will give it a try. Any feedback on my first post ?

[tthouse]

And on the same topic discussed, what about a ceramic gaiwan for longjing?

[bonescwa]

Porcelain is a type of ceramic. That's typically what I use for any green tea and it works fine. You can also use hotter water with a Chinese green if you aren't using a clay pot (not so for Korean or Japanese teas).

[steanze]

Nice teapot TThouse! Fanggu is one of my favorite shapes.
Yes, I am aware that yixing pots used to be used for green tea as well... actually I used the very first yixing teapot I got for green tea too (a few years ago) but now I find I prefer porcelain or glass for green tea. The advantage of porcelain is that it can be very thin, the advantage of glass is that you can watch the leaves floating, the floating of green tea leaves is beautiful. A ceramic gaiwan should work well - the only thing is that sometimes ceramic is thicker so in that case you need to watch out for overcooking. You could also consider celadon, but ideally you'd want thin celadon, and that is not so easy to find in the west and also not cheap

Unfortunately I don't know the artist who made your teapot, but hopefully some more knowledgeable members will chime in! It looks like a good pot.

Kyarazen, thanks a lot for posting the data on water absorption! Do you happen to also know what is the range of water absorption for zhu ni, zi ni and duanni?

[mganz42]

There's another route you could go... It's a bit unconventional and some people have argued with me about this, but you could also try using a Japanese kyusu, raw clay or glazed. I currently use a banko houhin for my Chinese greens and I'm pretty satisfied with that. It doesn't steal the aroma too much but it gives you the raw clay experience rather than porcelain or glass. Plus many of these pots are intended for green teas (albeit not Chinese ones)

[tthouse]

Thanks for your comments.

A Kyusu sounds like an excellent alternative. What method would you use to brew longjing in a Kyusu?

[tthouse]

Nice teapot TThouse! Fanggu is one of my favorite shapes.
Yes, I am aware that yixing pots used to be used for green tea as well... actually I used the very first yixing teapot I got for green tea too (a few years ago) but now I find I prefer porcelain or glass for green tea. The advantage of porcelain is that it can be very thin, the advantage of glass is that you can watch the leaves floating, the floating of green tea leaves is beautiful. A ceramic gaiwan should work well - the only thing is that sometimes ceramic is thicker so in that case you need to watch out for overcooking. You could also consider celadon, but ideally you'd want thin celadon, and that is not so easy to find in the west and also not cheap

Unfortunately I don't know the artist who made your teapot, but hopefully some more knowledgeable members will chime in! It looks like a good pot.

Kyarazen, thanks a lot for posting the data on water absorption! Do you happen to also know what is the range of water absorption for zhu ni, zi ni and duanni?

thanks!

[bagua7]

Any feedback on my first post ?

What I wrote before: no Yixings for anything remotely green or oolongs except dan cong...still dan congs are nicely brewed in porcelain.

Longjing tea, being your preferred tea at the moment, lose too much when brewed in clay. It would be wiser to brew this excellent green tea either in porcelain or tall glass (another popular method discussed by Hojo).

Cheers!