Can teapots absorb odors?

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Teachronicles
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Mon Mar 19, 2018 3:59 am

So I'm shopping for a storage/display cabinet for my teapots and a lot of the options are wood. I read somewhere (I think it was marshaln's blog but not sure) that teapots, scan absorb odors. Does this sound right? And will that affect tea brewed in the pots?
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Bok
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Mon Mar 19, 2018 4:34 am

In my own experience not too much, nothing that doesn’t dissapear after a good rinse with hot water.

Not sure about super porous pots… in any case the odour would have to be super strong.
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Elise
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Mon Mar 19, 2018 5:54 am

+1 with Bok’s opinion.
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tealifehk
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Mon Mar 19, 2018 7:59 am

Have you considered a glass display cabinet? All of my Yixings at home are in glass cabinets. It makes it easy to admire them without handling and I can pick which one I intend to use before I open the cabinet!
Teachronicles
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Mon Mar 19, 2018 8:00 am

tealifehk wrote:
Mon Mar 19, 2018 7:59 am
Have you considered a glass display cabinet? All of my Yixings at home are in glass cabinets. It makes it easy to admire them without handling and I can pick which one I intend to use before I open the cabinet!
Yea, I was leaning towards a glass one, but wanted to ask anyways.
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pedant
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Sun Mar 25, 2018 12:26 am

cabinets can definitely make your teaware smelly and negatively impact brewing.
leave the cabinet closed for about a day (or at least a few hours) to let potential odors build up inside. then open it and quickly smell.
if there's any kind of a smell, don't use it for your teaware.
Teachronicles
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Sun Mar 25, 2018 12:42 am

pedant wrote:
Sun Mar 25, 2018 12:26 am
cabinets can definitely make your teaware smelly and negatively impact brewing.
leave the cabinet closed for about a day (or at least a few hours) to let potential odors build up inside. then open it and quickly smell.
if there's any kind of a smell, don't use it for your teaware.
Does glazed unglazed make a difference in your experience?
Teachronicles
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Sun Mar 25, 2018 12:48 am

Teachronicles wrote:
Sun Mar 25, 2018 12:42 am
pedant wrote:
Sun Mar 25, 2018 12:26 am
cabinets can definitely make your teaware smelly and negatively impact brewing.
leave the cabinet closed for about a day (or at least a few hours) to let potential odors build up inside. then open it and quickly smell.
if there's any kind of a smell, don't use it for your teaware.
Does glazed unglazed make a difference in your experience?
I ask cause I don't store any of my yixing unglazed pots in wooden cabinets but do some glazed ones. So far I can't smell anything on the teapots, maybe I'll air them out every so often.
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Bok
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Sun Mar 25, 2018 1:10 am

Glazed would be nearly impossible to absorb odours. The ones that stick will air out quickly.
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pedant
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Sun Mar 25, 2018 1:13 am

in my experience with using an unsuitable cabinet, glazed and unglazed are equally affected.
i could smell the cabinet on my pots and cups i had in there.
Bok wrote:
Sun Mar 25, 2018 1:10 am
Glazed would be nearly impossible to absorb odours. The ones that stick will air out quickly.
odors can adsorb onto glazed and unglazed surfaces alike.
ime, leaving them to air out didn't quickly fix it.

the deposited smelliness could be easily and quickly removed from glazed wares with soap and water, but i didn't want to use soap on unglazed pots.
it took several boiling water rinses, lackluster tea sessions, and a bit of time for those pots to go back to normal. i think they're fine now, no long term harm done.
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Bok
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Sun Mar 25, 2018 1:33 am

Better safe than sorry then! Guess I had never had such a smelly cabinet ;)
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Manttea
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Thu Mar 29, 2018 12:50 am

Put a chaozhou teapot into it's own cardboard box when I moved away for a bit. It took forever to get rid of the smell, but still performed well. Won't do that again tough.
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Bok
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Thu Mar 29, 2018 1:03 am

I have noticed that packaging sent out of China often have some crazy smells going on! Never mind the weird sort of net-like wrapping they use to pack several packets together – comes with original road dust and sand! Scary stuff.
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