confused over yixing

[trent]

I'm just starting to get into gong fu style brewing, but I only have a gaiwan.

NOTE: I've seen threads discussing this topic before, but none as focused as this.

I'm looking to get some yixing pots, but I'm confused over how many I really need. I think I should get a yixing for each of the following:

-yunnan gold (the only black tea I drink)
-raw pu-erh
-dark oolong
-light oolong

Do I need seperate pots for darker/lighter raw pu erh?
Should I get a pot for medium oolong?

[chrl42]

Yi Cha Yi Hu (one tea one teapot). That's what yixing followers say. However, what you say is oblivious to me, because I don't drink puerh raw or cooked that is less then 10 years old, then to buy puerh that is 20 years old my pocket doesn't allow me. And what is medium oolong?

[trent]

By medium oolong, I mean oolong that isn't heavily roasted or very green, just medium.

Ideally, I would have a separate yixing for each tea, but I don't want to spend over $1000 on loads of yixings, nor do I want to buy alot of cheap pots.

[chrl42]

sorry I couldnt think of proper oolong for 'medium' but there must be. If there is, why not?
I crave for wu yi yan cha. So I should have teapots for da hong pao, bai ji guan, tie luo han, shui jin gui, rou gui and shui xian in the future!

[olivierco]

I'm just starting to get into gong fu style brewing, but I only have a gaiwan.

NOTE: I've seen threads discussing this topic before, but none as focused as this.

I'm looking to get some yixing pots, but I'm confused over how many I really need. I think I should get a yixing for each of the following:

-yunnan gold (the only black tea I drink)
-raw pu-erh
-dark oolong
-light oolong

Do I need seperate pots for darker/lighter raw pu erh?
Should I get a pot for medium oolong?

For Yunnan gold, I don't think yixing teapot is necessary.
You should separate raw from cooked pu erh, but one pot for raw pu erh should be ok. The best way is to experiment in which way the taste of your tea is affected by the taste of the previous tea you brewed in the teapot.

[omegapd]

Interesting question and I did a little experiment along these lines a couple of days ago.

I have 2 Yixing pots, one which was bought brand new, and I went through a couple of days worth of "seasoning" it with directions I found on the Internet. I bought the pot to only steep Lapsang Souchong and used Lapsang to season it. For the past 6 months or so, it has only seen Lapsang and has been used (on average) once a week. Some weeks I may use it 2-3 times and other none.

The other day I decided to brew up a pot of Adagio's Cream in it to see what would happen. Amazingly, I tasted not a hint of Lapsang or the smokiness that's associated with it.

So, I've come to the conclusion that:
a) maybe I haven't used it enough
b) maybe Yixing isn't as porous as I thought
c) maybe my Yixing pot is of poor quality

I know this doesn't answer your question, Trent, but I thought I'd post my findings anyway.

EW

[hop_goblin]

It is good to start a teapot family. However, it is also very easy to go overboard and worry about cross-contamination. When I first started gongfu brewing, I thought that it would be ideal to buy a pot for every time of tea, even in terms of their growing regions. This of course will not be practical as I would eventally have way to many to keep up with. After reading many articles and forums, I believe most are experts believe that will be acceptable to have pots for each type of tea you are drinking just as you have implied.

Pots for each:

Young Sheng
Old Sheng
Cooked Sheng
Light Oolongs
Heavy roasted Oolongs
HongCha

And so forth.

Although I personally have a number of pots, I have not dedicated a particular tea to each of them. In fact, some remain undedicated.

Young Sheng,
Slightly Aged -Aged Sheng
Light Oolongs
Heavy Oolongs
And one smaller pot for my DaHongPao