Smell should be only one of the indication. Color and texture should also be concerned.
About the clay in Yixing today
The vendor suggests a strong colour indicates concentrations >= 5PPM.Chi-Lin Lu wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2018 7:13 amWow, this looks good. How about the sensitivity of it ? Because the metal-ion dissolved should be very little, if the sensitivity is not high enough, may not be examined.
I'd have to have a look around, but you may well be right about that being too high a threshold (or higher than the EPA threshold for drinking water, at least) although I believe you could account for this somewhat by, say, filling a pot with boiling distilled water, lidding the pot, and leaving it for a day. I'm not comfortable enough with chemistry to suggest how much more might be extracted from the pot walls during that period compared with a dozen short steeps.
I suppose you could fill the pot, let it rest for whatever period, then boil it down in a glass vessel to ~1ml for testing - you could increase the "effective sensitivity" of the test by a factor of ~x times for an x ml pot.
Last edited by Atlas on Tue Jan 09, 2018 12:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
- Chi-Lin Lu
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 6:06 pm
- Location: Taiwan
Yes, it sounds reasonable and feasible. This could be an option for the people who worry about the oxides in pot.Atlas wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2018 11:45 amThe vendor suggests a strong colour indicates concentrations >= 5PPM.
I'd have to have a look around, but you may well be right about that being too high a standard (or higher than the EPA standards for drinking water, at least) although I believe you could account for this somewhat by, say, filling a pot with boiling distilled water, lidding the pot, and leaving it for a day. I'm not comfortable enough with chemistry to suggest how much more might be extracted from the pot walls during that period compared with a dozen short steeps.
I suppose you could fill the pot, let it rest for whatever period, then boil it down in a glass vessel to ~1ml for testing - you could increase the "effective sensitivity" of the test by a factor of ~x times for an x ml pot.
Iron tetsubin only seem to give off 1-2 ppm of iron after boiling water in them, so I wonder if a clay pot would exude enough heavy metal ions for the test to work...even with the overnight method!
Rather discouraging perspective on the modern clay situation:
https://www.bitterleafteas.com/blog/dig ... ng-part-ii
https://www.bitterleafteas.com/blog/dig ... ng-part-ii