Teadonism

Again, my first Yixing teapot, purchased at the Ten Ren in Chicago’s Chinatown–scroll down just a few posts to see a picture of it…

Anyway, upon further research and lots of agonized staring at the darling little creature, I’ve come to the conclusion that I cannot reliably say that this even *is* a Yixing teapot.

 Damn and blast!

Why do I say this?  Well–it makes the lovely, clear, trademark metallic “ring” that I’ve heard so often about when the lid is tapped on the body, which is good.  And it has small particles in it that catch the light with a bit of “sparkle,” which is good.

However, other tests I’ve heard about, it fails miserably.  The pour is very slow (35 seconds!), the venting hole in the lid does *nothing* to affect the pour of water, the lid is slightly cattywompus and doesn’t fit perfectly, etc.

Now, I understand that this could very well mean that this is a *lower quality* Yixing teapot, but still the genuine clay I was after.  I could accept that.  It’s my first, and is a learning experience.

But I just don’t know enough about Yixing to say this for certain.  Plus, I’ve seen it stated several times online that Ten Ren does not sell *any* actual Yixing pots, but rather *all* Taiwanese designs of different clay.  I can’t determine whether there is any truth to this or not, but it’s enough to make me wonder. 

Of course, I’ve seen Ten Ren pots like mine referred to as “Yixing” just as many times on blogs and whatnot, so I’m at my wit’s end trying to decide what the case is.

Therefore, I have decided to simply come to grips with the fact that I don’t know, and that I won’t really know until I have a chance to become more familiar with high-quaility yixing from other vendors.

In light of this decision, I’m going to dedicate this pot to shu puerh.  Why?  Well, shu seems to me to be not as delicate or difficult or nuanced as sheng puerhs or oolongs, and it can certainly tolerate that long pour-time when sheng would up and go toxic on me, most likely.  It’s also cheaper, and relatively simple for me to find (Chicago trips, online, etc.) and not as “important” to me as my sheng.  Plus, I have a decent amount of it sitting about now, perfect to use for this pot and for casually drinking/gongfuing with a meal or as a little treat.

And I, who am very often slightly anal-retentive about things I care about and concerned with perfection, knowledge, etc., am surprisingly “okay” with all of this.

 So, shu into the pot!  I’m still very excited about using it.

The next crisis was: How to season this teapot? 

There are a zillion suggestions on the web and newsgroups, from very complicated to very simple.  Most involve boiling water, some involve tea, and some involve freezers and tinfoil and ovens and….jeez.

Sounded like a hassle, and I wasn’t pleased with the wide variation of suggestions.  What to do? 

Default to a single, trusted source!  Stephane’s blog is always full of fascinating brilliance, and this advice comes from Teaparker, so…how can I go wrong?  I’ll rinse the sucker well, use it as a fairpot for awhile, take care to pour lots o’ tea on the outside, and go from there. 

If good, good!  If not-so-good…plenty of time to pull out the tinfoil and parka and powdered rhino horn and flux capacitator later…

I’ll report back to tell how the pot turns out in a few months.