Yixing advice
Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2017 12:46 am
You want to get a Yixing teapot and don't know what type of pot you should get? Ask here mentioning what tea you'd like to brew.
Open leaves with crumbly bits, as is often the case with aged teas will benefit from of a lower profile pot with multi-hole filter. But you can never go wrong with the goldilocks of teapots, the standard medium shuiping shape.
In terms of clay among those options I'd prefer green label qingshuini. But later F1 zini is fine too, there are just some batches that are not as good as others so it depends a bit on the particular pot. If you can get heixingtu pot with a flat filter I'd go with that.MmBuddha wrote: ↑Mon Mar 26, 2018 9:21 pmResurrecting a bit of an old thread here, but I’m hoping to purchase a pot for Liu Bao soon, and would be grateful for some advice. For now I’m planning to own only one pot for this tea, so ideally it would do well brewing both more modern tea, and the occasional vintage Liu Bao from the 70s etc.
Pre and early Factory purple clay is off the table due to price, so I’m thinking my best options are probably 70s QSN, or green label zini, though by all means recommend other options if you think they’ll work better. I’m aware the former clay is generally considered more desirable for most teas, but I’d be interested to hear if that’s likely to be the case here.
I’ve heard from a few people that green label zini, while not necessarily the best clay in the world, can be a good match for musty, wetter stored teas. Liu Bao seems like a candidate here, but I’ve tried a limited selection so far. I’m somewhat undecided about the extent to which I’ll want the clay to mute aromatics, and whether or not the generally less porous attributes of F1 QSN (or so I’ve heard) are a better option.
In terms of size I was thinking around 90ml would work well for me. Any pointers on shape and filter (whether multi-hole might be desirable for Liu Bao etc) would also be a big help.
Thanks in advance for your advice.
Pour is rather slow, so definitely some of the more forgiving teas like Taiwanese rolled oolongs. I remember Steanze saying a good alternative choice for Taiwanese gaoshan for a thin walled porcelain gaiwan is a thin walled 60ies or 70ies hongniTeachronicles wrote: ↑Mon Mar 26, 2018 10:44 pmHere's a 1960s hongni pot I recently got. As far as I can tell it's pretty thin walled, medium to high fired. From my testing so far it's very slightly muting compared to porcelain and really makes tea smoother. I would love to hear what tea everyone would pair it with. The pour is 12 seconds btw.
I thought goashan would be a good fit for it but I drink much more roasted oolongs, and would hate to see it get neglected. Side question, is goashan refer to only the greener variety of high mountain or just anything grown at high elevation? I figured youd know this bok.Bok wrote: ↑Mon Mar 26, 2018 10:54 pmPour is rather slow, so definitely some of the more forgiving teas like Taiwanese rolled oolongs. I remember Steanze saying a good alternative choice for Taiwanese gaoshan for a thin walled porcelain gaiwan is a thin walled 60ies or 70ies hongniTeachronicles wrote: ↑Mon Mar 26, 2018 10:44 pmHere's a 1960s hongni pot I recently got. As far as I can tell it's pretty thin walled, medium to high fired. From my testing so far it's very slightly muting compared to porcelain and really makes tea smoother. I would love to hear what tea everyone would pair it with. The pour is 12 seconds btw.
For roasted oolong I prefer Hokujo’s stellar stoneware kyusu, solid build, dense walls hold aroma and flavor in a most ideal way. For this kind of pot I would assign LiShan, Dayuling, FuShouShan, ShanLiXi etc. But it is best that you compare how it performs, before assigning a pairing. Each pot is different. Washing with boiling water between testing out different teas helps to reset the pot as you become aquainted. If you are concerned a heavy aroma might remain, rinse with boiling water a few times, and even let one rinse sit overnight, and then taste the cool water to test.Teachronicles wrote: ↑Mon Mar 26, 2018 11:12 pmAnother question, related to testing pots. You can brew a fair amount of tea in a pot before worrying about it influencing future brews right? Ive heard different things about how long it takes to season a pot so it'd be great to get some clarification.
I actually just spoke with toru from artistic nippon about kohokujo, one of hokujos sons, making a smaller kyusu, similar to the ones sold out on there now, which he's agreed to do. Im pretty sure he uses the same clay as his father and from artistic nippons selection it seemed hokujo makes mostly bigger pots, which I wouldn't use much.Victoria wrote: ↑Tue Mar 27, 2018 12:07 amFor roasted oolong I prefer Hokujo’s stellar stoneware kyusu, solid build, dense walls hold aroma and flavor in a most ideal way. For this kind of pot I would assign LiShan, Dayuling, FuShouShan, ShanLiXi etc. But it is best that you compare how it performs, before assigning a pairing. Each pot is different. Washing with boiling water between testing out different teas helps to reset the pot as you become aquainted. If you are concerned a heavy aroma might remain, rinse with boiling water a few times, and even let one rinse sit overnight, and then taste the cool water to test.Teachronicles wrote: ↑Mon Mar 26, 2018 11:12 pmAnother question, related to testing pots. You can brew a fair amount of tea in a pot before worrying about it influencing future brews right? Ive heard different things about how long it takes to season a pot so it'd be great to get some clarification.
Mostly only the greener stuff. As the aromas are so precious it is seldomly done to further process them, some consider it a waste and not worth the extra effort when you can already get premium prices for it in the greener state. And you can get excellent roast out of lower elevation material, so the high mountain is not strictly necessary. Dong Ding is considerably lower elevation usually.Teachronicles wrote: ↑Mon Mar 26, 2018 11:07 pmI thought goashan would be a good fit for it but I drink much more roasted oolongs, and would hate to see it get neglected. Side question, is goashan refer to only the greener variety of high mountain or just anything grown at high elevation? I figured youd know this bok.