Glazed interior/porcelain kyusu in EU?

[gBarlow]

Hello!

I am just beginning to start in earnest my tea journey. I recently ordered some sencha and hojicha from Japan, and after it arrived, I realised that I didn't really didn't have suitable tea ware for brewing it. What I had been relying on was a gravity style steep and release plastic brewer from tealyra, but it unfortunately is designed in such a way that the rubber gaskets and rings are literally uncleanable.

So I want to step up my game in the brewing department. I would like to get a kyusu that is suitable for a wide variety of teas, such as the ones mentioned above, plus others like genmaicha and Chinese white tea (tried some recently that made me realise what I had been missing out on). This to me would indicate that I should be looking for an interior glazed or porcelain kyusu, but I would also like to be able to share my tea with my cousin who is also a tea head, so something around the 200ml capacity or above would be ideal. Shipping from within the EU is also highly preferable in order to keep the cost down.

The only thing I could find that fits the bill is the LT Kyusu teapot 300mL from Kinto seems to fit the bill and is reasonably priced, but:
1) The filter doesn't seem fine enough to sort out the finer bits of leaf from something like fukamushi sencha, which isn't too much of a problem as I can just use a separate mesh when decanting into a server; And, a slightly bigger problem:
2) The base diameter seems very stingy compared to the overall size the teapot, which seems to be in an attempt to 'modernise' the design and blend it with more 'usual' western style tea pots. I'd definitely prefer a wider base for more room for the tea leaves to move while brewing!

If anyone has any recommendations under or around the €100 mark along these lines, I'd greatly appreciate it! I've been searching all over Google, reddit and this forum for items that are currently available on the market to no avail.

Thanks in advance

[Janice]

Take a look at the work of Inge Nielsen. She’s in Belgium and makes beautiful functional teaware. https://ingenielsenpottery.com/

[GaoShan]

Take a look at the work of Inge Nielsen. She’s in Belgium and makes beautiful functional teaware. https://ingenielsenpottery.com/

Inge Nielsen makes nice pots, but they're usually a lot smaller than 200 ml. I think Camellia Sinensis has some porcelain kyusu around that size right now, but they ship from Canada.

[teatray]

I think you will have trouble finding any sort of glazed-interior teapot with really small holes, even if you looked globally. I have some experience with an Ingle Nielsen pot, and it has a fine filter, but I doubt it will be suitable for fukamushi (it was also a small ball with a limited number of holes, so likely to clog for this type of tea). Asahiyaki.com have some glazed pots with very small holes that look like they might work, even for fuka, but the hohin shape is not versatile IMHO (gets too hot for me, even for later steeps of sencha, not to mention for making other teas, many people disagree ofc and use them, at least for sencha where it's a standard). Their cup-shaped pot with handle looks versatile but small for 2 people (100ml), and expensive. Never used Asahiyaki though, so just speculating.

Generally, if you enjoy fuka, you might want a separate pot for it, either a very cheap/standard Japanese unglazed kyusu with mesh (that you will only use for fuka and maybe some other Japanese greens), or a more expensive artisan pot with an extremely fine ceramic filter (these exist, just cannot be glazed, apparently). Fuka can be very nice, but as you continue exploring teas you may find that it's only a small share of the tea you will drink, so a cheap fuka pot might be a good start?

For the rest, a standard (fuka-incompatible) porcelain/glazed pot of some sort (with no crackle) is probably a good, versatile starting point that will serve well enough for most teas (maybe also a basic gaiwan). Once you discover new teas you really, really like, you can check how regular drinkers prepare them and get another pot to see if you like it better. After some experimenting, I personally stuck to my porcelain pots for most stuff, incl. my TW oolongs which I mostly drink at the moment, but many (maybe most) people prefer clay pots of some sort. (I do use my unglazed sencha pots for sencha.)

For the porcelain/glazed pot, my fav is probably the one I got from M&L (this one) but that range of pots (which includes somewhat bigger ones) is out of stock. Also have a good Setoyaki porcelain pot, many other options to consider, too, incl. Inge's pots.

[pepson]

Hello!

I am just beginning ...

Hello.
Is Kyusu neccessary for you ?
Why would not you try to use shiboridashi ?
Shibo is much more "user friendly" teaware than gaiwan

[teatray]

Just came across this: https://www.yoshien.com/en/teapot-jingd ... hi-en.html. Looks like what you need (no experience with seller myself but considering testing them out; might be worth asking if it's also glazed inside before ordering).

[Allegria]

Just came across this: https://www.yoshien.com/en/teapot-jingd ... hi-en.html. Looks like what you need (no experience with seller myself but considering testing them out; might be worth asking if it's also glazed inside before ordering).

That's just a whopping three times more than what it costs on Aliexpress... I suggest an image search on Aliexpress, as I don't want to promote a specific vendor - but you'll find it in seconds. And yes, it's glazed completely, including the strainer.

[teatray]

Just came across this: https://www.yoshien.com/en/teapot-jingd ... hi-en.html. Looks like what you need (no experience with seller myself but considering testing them out; might be worth asking if it's also glazed inside before ordering).

That's just a whopping three times more than what it costs on Aliexpress... I suggest an image search on Aliexpress, as I don't want to promote a specific vendor - but you'll find it in seconds. And yes, it's glazed completely, including the strainer.

A link would help OP and the discussion. I tried the image search and got very similar pots on Ali Express, but not exactly the same (volume, shapes). That said, no idea if Yoshien's pot is any better qualitywise than what's on Ali. OP did ask for an EU-based shop, but FWIW my experience with Ali Express is that they make importing seamless (they handle everything; it doesn't even go through my country's customs, which can be difficult to deal with [EU/Bulgaria]). So Ali is definitely to be preferred, if it's the exact same item.

On the other hand, I have kept very few of the pieces I've ordered from Ali, e.g. this porcelain pot for €26 was very crudely made and the exposed clay (lid/rim) was rough, weird and smelly, unlike other porcelain items I own. (Deep cleaning with sodium percarbonate didn't help with the odor.) I kept the matching porcelain tea tray, as it doesn't touch my tea, but it's not that great either. Out of several orders, the only tea-touching stuff I've kept from Ali are a glass teapot and 2 glass pitchers. Everything else got thrown away, either immediately or eventually. Maybe bad luck and obviously a small sample, but I've personally stopped buying tea stuff there. The expensive M&L porcelain pot (linked in my first reply) is finely made, the color is excellent, the walls, spout, etc. are very thin. I never got anything approaching that quality on Ali. Did I overpay M&L? I guess so, could be 100%, if not 200%. But trying to buy something similar for cheap ended up costing me about as much as I paid for that pot. Now I'm sorry I didn't just get a second while they were in stock. It's a one time cost & doesn't matter too much. I guess other people with experience/better access may not need to pay such a high "curator's fee".