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hopeofdawn, Not knowing where you live, makes giving advice more difficult. If possible w/o too much bother, I think some shopping in person makes sense for you. Cheers Sadly, I am in the Seattle area. We have some really good tea shops, but I've never been able to find anyone that carries good yix...

Yinchen used to be a reliable shop. As in – people had not yet connected the dots and they where first to skip the middlemen and appear on Western IG ; ) Actually, I didn't discover Yinchen through Instagram - I had it recommended to me as a reputable vendor who had good (tho not stellar) yixing po...

hopeofdawn Another question, if clay differences are negligible to you, why drop this kind of money for simply a different shape? I could see if you were aiming for a particular clay, or particular shape for a specific tea type. Again, don’t take my preferences personally. I’m just not a fan of thi...

Hmm, that's definitely food for thought. While having something half-handmade is not a deal-breaker for me, I did ask specifically if it was half or fully handmade, and they said handmade. So if they're willing to mislead me about that, it makes me wonder what else they might not be telling me about...

hopeofdawn I am far and away no expert on Yixing. I have not read through rest of thread, nor do I intend to. I would not buy pot at this price, imo. As bok referred to complexity of shape, I would tend to think some type of mould was used. But I could be completely off. As you stated you have seve...

https://yinchenstudio.com/collections/yixing-teapot/products/zen-lotus-yixing-teapot-260ml I think price usually corresponds to the quality you get... I would not expect that a complicated shape like this one would as low as 599 – if fully handmade. Still clay and workmanship looks reasonably good ...

Hello - I took a break from tea forums for awhile, but recently a pot caught my eye and I was thinking of getting it. However, the downgrading of Yinchen's reputation on this forum and elsewhere is making me pause - this is a pretty pricey pot (for me at least), and I don't want to be taken for a ri...

This is very true--I forgot to clarify there. I'd be more worried about modern pots with adulterated clay, and antique pots with non-food-safe glazes.

I love stem/twig teas - this one sounds really interesting. do you find you need to use a lot more volume for brewing though? For White Antlers, I did not--in my experience there's something about stem tea that gives a lot of flavor without needing a lot of volume. And it gives a *lot* of brews. As...

Personal criteria for a good teapot (note that this is not limited to yixing), from most important to least: #1. Safety. If I suspect it has adulterated glazes or clay, then it's automatically a bad pot. Thankfully less of an issue these days for most countries with proper food safety regulations, b...

There's an English tea place in a nearby town that I enjoy going to every once in a while--they serve a wide menu of flavored teas (rose, jasmine, strawberry, etc, etc.) along with a few unflavored standard blacks, greens, white, etc. Nothing exceptional as far as the tea is concerned, but then that...

Yinchen has a very lovely duanni and copper one that I've been eyeing for a while, even though I can't really justify a second tea tray at the moment: https://yinchenstudio.com/collections/a ... e-tea-boat

Amazing photo--I love the textures!

I read both articles and had much the same reaction as many members here, rolling my eyes at the pretentiousness of the names, the 'ritual', and so on, at least as depicted by the New York Times journalist. I came away thinking that these 'tea gurus' were certainly full of themselves ... And then I ...

I've been working from home since March, which has changed up my tea routine, as I now have all my tea and teaware at my disposal instead of just what I've stashed away at the office. (and in fact had to go in and retrieve my stash after it became clear after a couple months we weren't going back an...