Gentle preheating: Are older Yixing pots more fragile?

[pedant]

i've always dumped boiling water into my teawares to preheat them without a care in the world, but i've got a F1 on the way, and i was thinking i'd be a little more careful with that one.

i'm under the impression that people take greater care to gradually preheat older pots (perhaps with warm-hot water first instead of boiling-hot water). this is to avoid breaking them by making too high of a temperature gradient in the clay.

is this because older pots are somehow more fragile? if so, why is that the case? material property or fabrication method?

or is it more because people are just paranoid with older pots because they're valuable?

[jayinhk]

This is mainly a concern with lao zhuni or perhaps very high fired hongni I believe.

[kyarazen]

i've always dumped boiling water into my teawares to preheat them without a care in the world, but i've got a F1 on the way, and i was thinking i'd be a little more careful with that one.

i'm under the impression that people take greater care to gradually preheat older pots (perhaps with warm-hot water first instead of boiling-hot water). this is to avoid breaking them by making too high of a temperature gradient in the clay.

is this because older pots are somehow more fragile? if so, why is that the case? material property or fabrication method?

or is it more because people are just paranoid with older pots because they're valuable?

if its the 80-90s type F1, you can be quite casual with it, if it is hong ni from 70s and earlier you may have to be a bit more careful.

yixing does not fear temperature, i.e. you can go with boiling water, even bake it in an oven for a few hundred degrees or more, after all it came out of a 1100+ degree baking condition. the only risk with yixing, regardless of all ages, is sudden temperature change. if you reside in a country with cold temperatures, i.e. 4,5 degrees celsius, or freezing temperature, then you may need to "thaw the pot" i.e. warm it gently before using boiling hot water. if not, the thermal shock, even for newer yixings, can cause cracking

also, do less of strange things, like some of the cz gongfu brewing methods where the pot, with hot tea inside, is dipped into a basin of cool water to aid rapid cooling. do not douse a hot pot with cold/cool water etc. dynamics will lead to stress.. and subsequent fatigue!

some materials are more fragile than others, i.e. hongni is more prone to giving way more often than zini/qingshuini.

apart from the material, the workmanship matters as well, i.e. in the 60s, they liked to use "flat" internal base in yixing shuiping pots, this joint is known to crack if you do not pre-warm it. for the smaller pots i.e. 50ml, 60-70ml it doesnt matter so much, but the bigger the pot.. the higher the risk~

[BW85]

This is mainly a concern with lao zhuni or perhaps very high fired hongni I believe.

Yes, I've heard heart breaking stories of people cracking the very valuable old zhuni pots this way

I agree with the others though, you shouldn't have to worry about it too much with this hong ni... Unless it's uncomfortably cold in your house

[Tead Off]

I think thinness of the walls of red clay make a pot more vulnerable to stress cracking. This has happened to me only once and it involved the thinnest red Yixing I have ever owned. I still use it on occasion.

[thirst]

Good to know, having read this recently http://teaism99.com/2014/04/03/awakening/

[wyardley]

I do try to be careful with older pots, even if I'm pretty sure they can take it. I'm more careful if a pot hasn't been used in a while vs. if I've used it recently.

[bagua7]

Good to know, having read this recently http://teaism99.com/2014/04/03/awakening/

Yes that blog entry is gold. It should be a sticky. I can't imagine the nightmare one would experience if a rare and antique pot is broken that way (plus the money spent which would be substantial).

Thanks teaisme.

I have cracked two pots that way: modern zhuni and a duanni. In the first pot, it was winter and didn't realise the pot was too cold to handle boiling water. I learnt the lesson, but then later on in summer it happened to a second pot I had, an 80s duanni (a painful loss because it was a gorgeous variation of a dragon egg shape which is not commonly found), that cracked nicely all over, a thin long hairline crack that ran across the base and both sides up to the lid.

Today, I gradually preheat all the pots I use, old or new and regardless of the season.

[jayinhk]

From this day forward I will warm my pots with water from my cha hai. I always rinse them with tap water first, too.

[Alex]

I cracked a modern zhuni pot many years ago. I can still here that sicken crack to this day. What's weird is that I heated it first. But when I poured the boiling water in it was dumped in like a noob. No gentle pour!

[bagua7]

I can still here that sicken crack to this day

Horrible, I wouldn't have the guts to do that, Yixing torture porn?

Very weird, I didn't preheat mine at all it just simply went kaboom! Maybe yours had an invisible (to the eye) hairline crack which expanded due to the action of the heat.

Zhuni is a very sensitive clay to temperature changes. Just my theory.

[CheekyChipmunk]

I would say older doesn't mean more fragile. I'm new to the tea world but after pre-warming a less than 2-week old acquisition of a modern Zhu Ni in a moderate climate (its currently 19C), a little bit of boiling water was enough for an explosive spout-to-handle crack. This may also be due to a lack of quality in the material/firing of the pot...

[heliospace]

I like to say I am "conditioning a pot" when I first get it. I'll prewarm the outside with boiling water and then add boiling water to the inside of the pot, leave the lid off, and let it sit at least 24 hours before using it. I feel for those of you that lose pots due to cracking.

[Alex]

What I do now with high fired clay is to half fill with room temperature water and then pour in boiling. This seems to work great.

[JRS22]

What I do now with high fired clay is to half fill with room temperature water and then pour in boiling. This seems to work great.

Every time you use the pot, or just the first time?