Breaking into clay

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steanze
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Tue Nov 12, 2019 8:23 pm

absence wrote:
Mon Nov 04, 2019 3:13 pm
want to buy a "known good" pot so I can experience first hand what all the fuss is about [...]
I don't want to end up with a teapot-shaped black hole that devours all aroma. [...]
Can I find such a pot at Yunnan Sourcing? [...]
Awesome! Get a green label F1 qingshuini. Rationale below.

Modern clays can be good but many aren't. Being able to tell which ones are good takes experience. If you get a modern pot and you don't like it, you will not know whether it's because you are not a fan of yixings or whether it's because that clay is not good.

Among old pots, green label F1 pots are the best bang for your buck. Qingshuini is significantly cheaper than hongni, and its effect on tea is more prominent (but it is not a black hole!) Qingshuini is a type of zini, so this advice is in line with what Youzi suggested.

Whether or not the pot will make your tea better depends on whether the pot is a good fit for the tea! You can have a super expensive pot and still do worse than a porcelain gaiwan if the tea is not suitable for the pot. With a green label F1 qingshuini, I suggest you to brew mid-aged to aged sheng (at least 10 years old). It will reduce bitterness a bit, but a key impact will be on the smoothness/thickness of the texture of the tea. Don't use it to brew 2 years old sheng, a gaiwan will be better (well, you can experiment, but I wouldn't advise to use qingshuini to brew young sheng).

Unfortunately, you cannot find such a pot at Yunnan Sourcing.
Chadrinkincat
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Tue Nov 12, 2019 11:02 pm

Definitely agree with @steanze on his suggestion.

Green label qsn/zini is by far the best choice for a 1st step into yixing. Most people into vintage pots consider this clay to be pretty good and priced low enough that it would be hard to find a modern pot that could compete w/o costing significantly more. I use mine for semi aged sheng when I want to emphasize body/mouthfeel. I generally only use it to minimize bitterness when I’m brewing with extra leaf. Bitterness/astringency can also be reduced by using a thicker wall hongni pot while still retaining many of the higher notes that you can loose with zini.

YS is probably the least recommend vendor for yixing. Good for tea but their yixing are forgettable.

Not sure if you’ve read this article yet but it’s by far one of the most useful ones for choosing a yixing. https://www.kyarazen.com/secrets-choosi ... g-teapots/
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