On confirming clay effects and pot preferences

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Baiyun
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Thu Jan 26, 2023 11:28 pm

Here are a couple of shortcuts I use to test the following common questions with a reasonable level of variable isolation:

a) Does this specific clay pot work better for this specific tea type than a neutral Gaiwan?
b) Which of these generally suitable clay pots works best for this specific tea type?

The approach here is to first understand the effect of the clay on the liquor, without considering other aspects of the pot that will eventually affect the brew, and only advance pots that are a good match to the stage where the remaining thermal properties, and shape, will determine an ideal pairing. This two-stage approach should ensure that both aspects serve to improve the tea, rather than just one, or, if left unquestioned, perhaps none.

To make these experiments more accurate, it is best if the Gaiwan, Gong Dao Bei, and Cups are truly neutral, i.e., made from porcelain or glass. The comparison cups should also be the exact same to avoid perceived differences due to shape alone. Brewing nice and strong will make for a bit more forced astringency and bitterness to keep track of.

Blue shows brewing vessels, anything grey is just liquor transfer.


a) This is to determine whether any given pot should be chosen over a neutral Gaiwan for any given tea type.

Clay Effect.png
Clay Effect.png (53.46 KiB) Viewed 1948 times
  1. Brew a strong infusion in a neutral Gaiwan
  2. Decant the liquor into a neutral Gong Dao Bei
  3. Transfer half of the liquor into the Clay Pot
  4. After a few seconds, empty the Clay Pot into Cup A
  5. Transfer the remaining half of the liquor in the Gong Dao Bei to Cup B
  6. Let the liquor cool down to room temperature and compare
Even though the tea was not brewed in the pot, the pot will noticeably affect the liquor when it passes through the pot and into the cup. The other cup remains the neutral control. Letting both infusions cool down to room temperature will accentuate the differences and even out the temperature variation between the samples.

If the liquor that passed through the clay tastes improved by whatever standards you have, it makes sense to confirm that the thermal behaviour of the pot is also conducive, since the heat retention of the pot may on its own enhance or ruin the tea. Keep an eye on consistent brewing parameters.
Pot Confirmation.png
Pot Confirmation.png (40.74 KiB) Viewed 1948 times
  1. Brew several infusions as you normally would from the Clay Pot to Cup A
  2. Brew several infusions as you normally would from the Gaiwan to Cup B
  3. Continue to adjust and compare to see which vessel consistently produces better results
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b) This is to determine which of several clay options is best suited for a specific tea type, once it has been established that each pot in the running is better suited than a neutral Gaiwan. You may have to use a large Gong Dao Bei and stack a few infusions if you have many pots to fill with the same liquor.
Clay Preference.png
Clay Preference.png (110.73 KiB) Viewed 1943 times
  1. Brew a strong infusion in a neutral Gaiwan
  2. Decant the liquor into a neutral Gong Dao Bei
  3. Transfer part of the liquor into each available Clay Pot
  4. After a few seconds, empty each Clay Pot into a different Cup
  5. Let the liquor cool down to room temperature and compare
Shortlist two (or fifteen!) pots based on clay interaction alone and proceed to brew the tea properly in each pot to compare the outcome in the cup. Have an eye on brewing parameter and leaf to water ratio differences in vessels with differing volume. In addition to shape differences that affect the thermal properties and thus the extraction, other nuances like the shape of the pot may favour certain leaves.
Pot Selection.png
Pot Selection.png (41.34 KiB) Viewed 1948 times

Granted, this approach is not very romantic, and it is of course just as valid to take it slow and easy and feel out the right pairing over many sessions whilst watching the seasons flow and ebb, ebb and flow.

How do you go about it?
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Baisao
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Fri Jan 27, 2023 9:46 pm

I use an intuitive rather than dialectic approach.

I am familiar with my teapots and know what to expect from them. I’ll select for attenuations of texture and aromatics based on what I want from a tea. I don’t follow traditional expectations too stubbornly.

This intuitive approach is inline with how I make tea and how I suggest others learn to make tea. I don’t steer a car according to a timer or shower using a flow chart.

But to each their own 🙂
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Baiyun
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Fri Jan 27, 2023 10:56 pm

@Baisao I suppose this is less of an issue if you are already familiar with your pots. In my situation, I had a bunch of new pots to sort out - what works with what, which should I keep - and given the range of tea types it was a welcome finding to see that clay affinity could be tasted by just pouring the liquor through the pots, rather than brewing entire sessions in each pot for each tea type.

Now I know what each pot does to the exact same neutrally pre-brewed liquor of each major tea type, and it helped me pick out pairings based on nuances with confidence, tasting back and forth between 2 to 4 samples, with a neutral control. Spreadsheets may have been involved. But after all this, I do freestyle brew intuitively.

But then again my car largely steers itself :lol:
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Baisao
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Fri Jan 27, 2023 11:17 pm

A simple pour through as you’re doing will reveal a lot about how the surface chemistry affects the tea. It’s something I do when I have guests over for the first time so they can understand teapot selections better.

You’ll have to use the teapots to see how they corral aromatics, form a gall, pour as the leaves expand over time, etc. Each teapot is a little different, especially fully handmade teapots. Of my handmade teapots, I don’t think one is remotely like the others. It’s kind of marvelous.
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Baiyun
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Fri Jan 27, 2023 11:43 pm

Baisao wrote:
Fri Jan 27, 2023 11:17 pm
You’ll have to use the teapots to see how they corral aromatics, form a gall, pour as the leaves expand over time, etc.
Absolutely, there are surely pots out there that may have a slight clay mismatch but still make better tea than a neutral Gaiwan just based on these other properties. And also pots that have a great clay match but don't manage optimal extraction, or even over brew, certain leaves.

I am impressed by the similarities and differences I found between four red pots. And the amount of tea I ended up drinking that day.
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LeoFox
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Sat Jan 28, 2023 3:58 am

For someone who doesn't suddenly get a bunch of new pots, I find this works for me:

Simply start using the new pot with a tea that I've brewed a lot with an old pot. After a few sessions, including some back and forth between pots, I will know what's what.
Andrew S
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Sat Jan 28, 2023 5:29 am

I'm also intuitive in my approach these days, but it was worthwhile doing side-by-side comparisons a bit earlier on. They helped me to convince myself that I wasn't just imagining differences in my mind based on things like price, rarity, my own preconceptions, or other people's opinions.

Sometimes, brewing a tea that I knew very well in a new pot (as LeoFox says) taught me immediately that my own preconceptions about some kind of clay or pot were wrong, but it was also necessary to experiment to see if the pot needed a different technique.

Yancha is a good example for me; it's a style of tea that I like, and I've now managed to get a few pots that brew it very well for me. They're all different, and I've come to appreciate their differences (or at least, to start to do so). If a brewing session goes badly with them, I know that it's my fault, because I know that those pots can brew yancha very well. They've done so in the past. Any deficiencies now are only in my technique. That's where the kinds of things that Baisao mentions become more important than the clay taken in the abstract.

Slow-pouring pots are another good example.

Andrew
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LeoFox
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Sat Jan 28, 2023 6:58 am

I want to add that I've found this kind of clay to clay pot decanter comparison approach can be misleading. Reality is we don't normally use teapots this way as a decanter - and how the clay acts in this way as a decanter can be very different from how it acts when brewing the tea. Discovered this early on pretty fast- various effects I felt a pot had using this decanter method could not be reproduced at all when actually brewing a tea. A few instances of this- and I stopped using the decanter method.
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Bok
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Sun Jan 29, 2023 11:19 pm

Mostly due to being too lazy to brew/drink a lot of the same tea at the same time and having to prep and clean all the teaware, I also use the intuitive approach... facilitated by a huge amount of teapots and tea of course. I also tend to stick to a few regular teas in my rotation which I know inside out, so the effect a pot has (be it due to clay, shape, or other factors), becomes obvious rather fast.

With extended usage of a variety of pots, my own and those of others, it does become easier to actually judge a pot by the looks of it (in real life). By no means bullet proof, but it does get easier... just use a few 100 pots a 1000 times and you're getting close :lol:
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wave_code
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Mon Jan 30, 2023 4:30 am

I also go intuitive having tried side by side direct comparisons only a couple of times for actual brewing - the tastebuds get muddled so quickly anyway doing that I don't know if I would actually trust a more methodical result for myself. I've done side by side overnight plain water tests quite a few times though and those usually produce pretty obvious results over 24 hours.

Depending on how you brew I'd recommend maybe going straight from pot to cup unless you are trying out a pot that is say 3-800ml and in a weird shape that brewing one large-ish cup isn't really possible. I tend to favor bigger over small cups generally as well as pots 180ml or under so maybe this is just easier for me. But I do think going direct to a cup is an important part of assessing a clay because how it retains or dissipates heat will have a lot to do with your end result too, especially as you get in to longer steeps. The temperature and cooling time in the cup will determine a lot about what you are tasting, what kind of aromatics you get, so on. I would think this would be especially sensitive in regards to greener teas or things like yancha even more so than what I tend to drink.
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Baiyun
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Mon Jan 30, 2023 4:41 pm

Andrew S wrote:
Sat Jan 28, 2023 5:29 am
Slow-pouring pots are another good example.
How do you deal with these other than limiting them to long brewing teas? I made a point not to get any >10sec pots because my first pot was slow and I really wanted to avoid it going forward to give me more flexibility when it comes to rinses and flash steeps. It may not matter for many teas but certainly for some, and having a quick pour is never a burden. I know a lot of you are looking at old pots where the pour is not top of the list of attributes, but for modern pots I see no excuse for slow pourers.
LeoFox wrote:
Sat Jan 28, 2023 6:58 am
various effects I felt a pot had using this decanter method could not be reproduced at all when actually brewing a tea. A few instances of this- and I stopped using the decanter method.
Because the thermal behaviour of the pot muddled or negated the isolated clay effects? The reason why I am still interested in the decanter method is to rule out a mismatch that may get veiled by the remaining properties. I spent 2 years with my first pot (and no comparison) that brewed certain teas better simply due to the thermal properties, but the clay itself actually does not do the liquor many favours when just decanting. So I wanted to ensure that both work in favour of the tea when deciding pairings for new pots. All my new pots being dense red to minimise muting, which I am not a fan of, they were actually close enough in their effect so that the entire balance fell to the shape and wall thickness in terms of pairing them.
Bok wrote:
Sun Jan 29, 2023 11:19 pm
just use a few 100 pots a 1000 times and you're getting close :lol:
:shock:
wave_code wrote:
Mon Jan 30, 2023 4:30 am
I also go intuitive having tried side by side direct comparisons only a couple of times for actual brewing - the tastebuds get muddled so quickly anyway doing that I don't know if I would actually trust a more methodical result for myself. I've done side by side overnight plain water tests quite a few times though and those usually produce pretty obvious results over 24 hours.

Depending on how you brew I'd recommend maybe going straight from pot to cup unless you are trying out a pot that is say 3-800ml and in a weird shape that brewing one large-ish cup isn't really possible. I tend to favor bigger over small cups generally as well as pots 180ml or under so maybe this is just easier for me. But I do think going direct to a cup is an important part of assessing a clay because how it retains or dissipates heat will have a lot to do with your end result too, especially as you get in to longer steeps. The temperature and cooling time in the cup will determine a lot about what you are tasting, what kind of aromatics you get, so on. I would think this would be especially sensitive in regards to greener teas or things like yancha even more so than what I tend to drink.
Tastebud muddling is an issue. Taking some time and drinking water in-between helped a bit, but there was still a lot of lingering and influencing going in, no doubt. The brighter and tingly notes were still the clearest to discern, and fortunately the degree of muting these notes was one of my primary interests in my case. I agree with pot to cup (which was step 2 after the decanter test in the initial post). My pots are 75-120ml and I use 100-200ml cups.

The biggest issue is probably confirmation bias but you'd need a partner that patiently indulges in your madness.
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Baisao
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Mon Jan 30, 2023 5:38 pm

Baiyun wrote:
Mon Jan 30, 2023 4:41 pm
Andrew S wrote:
Sat Jan 28, 2023 5:29 am
Slow-pouring pots are another good example.
How do you deal with these other than limiting them to long brewing teas? I made a point not to get any >10sec pots because my first pot was slow and I really wanted to avoid it going forward to give me more flexibility when it comes to rinses and flash steeps. It may not matter for many teas but certainly for some, and having a quick pour is never a burden. I know a lot of you are looking at old pots where the pour is not top of the list of attributes, but for modern pots I see no excuse for slow pourers.
It may seem unrelated but good tea is frequently forgiving. You’ll have more problems with temp and timing if you’re getting crummy teas, like from of the high volume sellers. The exceptions to this are heicha and shou which always benefit from a rapid pour.

That’s just one bit of it.
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Bok
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Mon Jan 30, 2023 7:02 pm

Baisao wrote:
Mon Jan 30, 2023 5:38 pm
It may seem unrelated but good tea is frequently forgiving. You’ll have more problems with temp and timing if you’re getting crummy teas, like from of the high volume sellers. The exceptions to this are heicha and shou which always benefit from a rapid pour.

That’s just one bit of it.
+1 The best teas can take quite a beating > hence 5 min to endless bowl brews when sampling teas.
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Baiyun
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Mon Jan 30, 2023 7:05 pm

Baisao wrote:
Mon Jan 30, 2023 5:38 pm
The exceptions to this are heicha and shou which always benefit from a rapid pour.
How do heicha and shou always benefit from a rapid pour? I drink very little of those (and then mostly liu bao) and have designated my slowest pot to them. I often let those infuse to the point where you could argue I forgot about it. The same for aged whites that you could stove boil all night.

Other than that, I probably brew some of my Taiwanese oolongs the longest, easily 1-3 minutes right away, with no bitterness or astringency to speak of (I found Floating Leaves sourced teas are especially forgiving on that front, from everything I tried), but I still want the pot to pour fast because I rinse all teas and prefer to be able to flush a bit of water through quickly.

When it comes to flash infusion pot brewing, this would be the realm of younger sheng, some younger white teas, and specific oolongs for me. Those I'd like to be very fast. Even on some older teas I like to have the option. Yesterday I had countless fast infusions of a 2004 brick tea that just came out brilliant and sweet when brewed that way.

Other than for green teas which go in a Gaiwan, I use a hot pot and boiling water, or warm pot and water just coming off the boil, on everything.

At least for my brewing, there's nothing good to say about a slow pot, and no downside to a fast pour. If you are sourcing antiques and find the right shape, clay, condition, and it so happens to pour slowly, then that's easily forgiven, and even a non-issue for several teas. But on a modern pot...give me fast.
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Baisao
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Mon Jan 30, 2023 7:48 pm

Baiyun wrote:
Mon Jan 30, 2023 7:05 pm
Baisao wrote:
Mon Jan 30, 2023 5:38 pm
The exceptions to this are heicha and shou which always benefit from a rapid pour.
How do heicha and shou always benefit from a rapid pour? I drink very little of those (and then mostly liu bao) and have designated my slowest pot to them. I often let those infuse to the point where you could argue I forgot about it. The same for aged whites that you could stove boil all night.
Heicha and shou can suddenly dump the extraction. Other teas are less likely to do this.
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