Glass teacup vs. porcelain teacup

[Odinsfury]

I tried drinking out of a glass teacup so I could enjoy the full color effect of the tea while I was drinking it, but I've found I enjoy the taste of porcelain better. Any thoughts on this or is it just a personal preference?

[Victoria]

Neither glass nor porcelain should be transferring any flavor to the tea.
Perhaps it is just the shape that is enhancing the flavor or the experience by the
way the tea is delivered to your tongue.

If you like porcelain better then use porcelain.

[kymidwife]

Just wait til you taste it in Hagi.

[Proinsias]

I prefer my coffee from a glass mug but with tea I much prefer something glazed.

edit: Is glass technically just pure glazing? and does the above make sense?

[Deleted User #17777]

Things like the thickness of the material, how fast it loses heat, the volume compared to the surface area, etc might change the tea experience more than the material itself.

I personally don't like my tea too hot. I use fairly small, handless cups. I let them sit a bit before I drink, but enjoy the aroma when hot. This is for pu'erh.

Different teas have classic tea cup shapes, like the english tea cup, wide and shallow, or the chawan for matcha.

And, when I get my sea cucumber hagi, I will try it with pu'erh ......

[Rainy-Day]

For lightly brewed greens, yellows and whites I prefer glass cups because they "steal" less heat vs. porcelain cups. Size of the cup (and shape) also matter. For blacks, oolongs and puerhs, either glass or porcelain work just as well for me.

I made a cup out of a coconut for light greens and I find that some teas - especially teaspring's cheap long jing - taste much better out of it. Some other greens taste worse. I should post pictures one of these days.. it looks very nice, although it cracked and leaks a bit of tea. I like the taste so much I don't mind leakage!

[Intuit]

Cup shape, depth/volume and wall thickness control heat transfer rate to the vessel and air, affecting aroma and taste because extracted tea liquor constituents vary from highly volatile ('bouquet' or aroma released in the gas phase with rising steam that may also be detectable in the liquid phase) to semi-volatile (top notes, those detectable by smell and taste) and nonvolatile (base notes present regardless of liquor temperature primarily detected on the tongue/soft palate).

A thin-walled delicate porcelain cup will lose heat rather quickly - a desirable trait when drinking nonmalty black tea from a large teapot, Western style, where one expects to make additional steeps of the same pot by adding hot water - as the British do when family and friends sit down for afternoon tea. Thin walled vessels are also desirable for Chinese species teas - Darjeelings, green oolongs and delicate green or white/yellow teas.

Thicker walled glass and ceramic vessels may be better for single steep malty Indian blacks and other aged teas where heat retention suspends large complexed liquor constituents that would otherwise be insoluble in the presence of fatty milk proteins.

I suspect that thick-walled-but-porous Hagi-ware has very interesting heat flux dynamics. It would be interesting to discuss this further.

Edit: how you drink your tea will also affect taste/odor. Slurping allows for steam and liquid to be tasted. Putting your nose into your cup and breathing before sipping may also yield a different taste/odor combination than that of simple sipping with breath held.

[chamekke]

As Robert Yellin observed on the e-yakimono site, "The rim of a vessel - its thickness, texture and curve - will affect how a liquid distributes itself across the tongue and palate, thereby radically affecting the taste profile and fragrance."

(I've read a more detailed analysis somewhere of how sake is enhanced by specific characteristics of the vessel - how some types will augment the perception of sweetness, for example - but I can't find it via a quick Google. If anyone's curious, I can try to dig it up.)