So every new tea drinker somehow hears about the magical qualities of Yixing. I am not to say they do not exist, but with Yixing I feel it should really be a personal desire to use these pots or not. I just sold 3 of my Yixing pots, and I have plans to try and find homes for the rest sometime in the future. But in short I have decided Gaiwans are by far preferred by me, for Chinese tea.
That is not to say I never got joy from yixing, I enjoyed watching the pots develop a patina slowly through use, much like I enjoy watching my hagi yaki change slowly through use. It just has to do with the fact that yixings never sang to me like Japanese and Korean ceramics.
The short summation of my experience with Yixing, the right pot will compliment the right tea, but then in the end you are not really enjoying the tea as it is somehow slightly changed by the yixing. Then you run into some worrying questions such as "does this tea taste good because it is being brewed in this pot?" or "would this tea taste better if brewed in a different vessel?"
Some people enjoy the hunt of matching the perfect yixing teapots with the perfect tea's, I am not one of those people. So I will stick with my love of other ceramics.
This is an interesting perspective. I really support people in choosing their own path. Too often, self-proclaimed connoisseurs seem to claim a monopoly on "how to do things right", which is silly and unnecessary. Every way of brewing has its advantages, and it's always a matter of personal taste.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading a number of posts by Gingko of Life in Teacup about mug brewing, I have started using this technique more, especially for greener oolongs. Something about the visual of seeing the leaves expand in a glass mug is also quite compelling for me, and I find that I like the way the aroma and flavor develops in the end, and I also get the sense that I'm really experiencing the tea itself, rather than the teapot.