In any case, it reminded me that tin pots are (and were) a thing. He mentions 王元吉 (which I read should probably be 黄元吉) and 懋德 as the finest contemporary tin craftsmen.宜兴罐,以龚春为上,时大彬次之,陈用卿又次之。锡注,以王元吉为上,归懋德次之。夫砂罐,砂也;锡注,锡也。器方脱手,而一罐一注价五六金,则是砂与锡与价,其轻重正相等焉,岂非怪事!一砂罐、一锡注,直跻之商彝、周鼎之列而毫无惭色,则是其品地也。
(This set is from the Qing dynasty)
A couple of days ago I saw this video from “Seokbo Tea Institute”, which recommends tin or silver for brewing qianliangcha.
I’ve been curious about silver pots for a long time, but hadn’t thought about tin (or pewter). Does anyone has experience with the latter? Searching around, the benefits attributed to tin seems to be same as silver (very good heat retention, slight sweetening of the water), so, in terms of brewing, is tin just the poor man’s silver?
And speaking of “the poor man”, the tin pots I’ve seen are anything but cheap. They can be pretty darned expensive, or a bit but not that much cheaper than similar silver offerings.