Uses and care of Yixing clay teapots

Due to the specificity of the material, teapots made of zi-sha (the correct name for a teapot made of Yixing clay) have a number of advantages that are not found in other types of tableware. That is, they are able to enter into a sensual connection with their owners. You pour out too many feelings towards the teapot, often stroking it like the most precious treasure. And the deeper your feeling, the more it blossoms in response, shiny and exquisitely simple like everything antique. Therefore, they say that a good teapot does not need to be put away on distant shelves, it should be constantly used and played with. The Ming Zhou Gaoqi said: “In order for the teapot to serve you for a long time, it must be looked after every day. A dull shine spontaneously appears on it, so that you can look into it like in a mirror.” These words essentially contain the key principles of methods for using and caring for a teapot.

Initial production of a new teapot.

After purchasing a new teapot, you can rub it with fine-grained sandpaper, but never use coarse-grained sandpaper, so as not to damage the outer surface (which may have notches made by the author - hieroglyphs or drawings). First, you need to rinse and wipe the outer and inner surfaces of the teapot with water and a cloth to remove dust and ceramic chips. Then you need to pour a relatively strong tea infusion into a saucepan or even with leaves, boil over low heat and almost immediately after boiling, put out the fire. While the infusion cools, you can simmer the teapot in it. This operation can be repeated several times. This is done so that the earthy smell evaporates from the teapot, and also so that the teapot receives primary nutrition. After waiting for the completion of this procedure, we take out the new teapot for natural drying, and in fact, the teapot can already be used for its intended purpose. However, the procedure itself is not at all mandatory. In practice, after you get your hands on a teapot, it is enough to rinse it, scald it and pour boiling water over it twice, and then you can immediately brew tea in it.

If you are at all serious about the tea ceremony, you can stock up on different teapots to brew a different type of tea in each of them, avoiding mixing of aromas. For brewing green teas, you can choose a low teapot. Its body is low, and the opening is wide. Since green teas are unfermented, the chlorophyll in them has not yet been destroyed, and the tea should not be simmered so that the infusion remains fresh, and its color-aroma-taste are even more attractive. For red teas, it is worth using a teapot with a high shape and a small opening for the lid, because due to the fact that red teas are fermented teas, as a result of successful simmering, the aroma of tea can be felt deeper and more restrained. If you like gongfucha, choose a Shuiping teapot (in the photo) with a capacity of about 80 ml. For oolong teas (Tie Guanyin, Da Hong Pao, baozhong, etc.), you can choose a teapot based on how many people will drink your tea.

The tea infusion feeds the kettle.

Regardless of whether you are using a new or an old teapot to brew, for example, red tea, after pouring boiling water over the tea leaves, foam will float to the surface near the hole for the lid of the teapot, and you can brush it off with light movements of the lid. After closing the lid for one or two minutes, pour the tea infusion through a strainer into cups or first into a gundaobei (cup of justice or chahai - sea of tea), and then from there into glasses for aroma (wenxiangbei) or into open cups. The first infusion poured into the cups can be poured over the outer surface of the teapot. This is called "tea infusion nourishes the teapot." At this time, the outer surface of the teapot is relatively high, you can use a damp terry towel or a clean damp cloth (there are special towels for teapots) to wipe the teapot from drips. If you do this repeatedly, the temperature of the teapot will drop a little, and you can iron the teapot with your hands. Since your hands are somewhat sweaty and oily, this procedure is suitable for making the teapot shine and gloss. Every time you wash the teapot and other tea utensils, the tea leaves are taken out of the teapot, and at this point it is convenient to wet the entire teapot and wipe it once. This removes traces of tea stains, and you can also rub the teapot with a warm tea leaf. After this, the teapot is rinsed with boiling water inside and out once or twice, and that's it: you can put tea in it and brew it. If you persistently perform such procedures for three or four months, then the new teapot will generally be able to emit a "dull shine".

There are also people who use other methods to care for their teapots, which involve using black shards ground to a powder. After the powder is wrapped in a multi-layer gauze, and this bag is soaked in the teapot with tea infusion, and then the teapot is lightly wiped with it so that it shines and sparkles even more.

As for old teapots, they should also be used, it is wrong to put them away in a distant place: their gloss will disappear there. After feeding the teapot with infusion, such chahu (teapots in Chinese - ed. note) will become even more beautiful. If you use such a teapot for a long time and take care of it properly, over time the patina on the teapot naturally begins to reflect. When you take care of the teapot, you can also learn to understand how good or bad the teapot is. A teapot made of bad clay is very difficult to fill, while teapots made of high-quality material and made by real masters, the more you take care of them, the more they are filled with spirit and reflect the mood of the person brewing tea in them. If your goal is just to invest in a teapot as a means against inflation, then of course this is a completely different matter.

Remove dirt, restore the base.

If the teapot has not been used for a long time, or if the used leaves have been removed from it at the wrong time due to carelessness, it will start to mold, or at least develop a foreign smell. In this case, after removing the moldy leaves, you need to fill it to the brim with boiling water and gently shake it from side to side, then immediately put the teapot in cold water, and then the foreign smells will disappear. If it does not work in one go, you can repeat it two or three times, and perhaps you will be able to achieve a satisfactory result. And do not worry that cracks will appear in the teapot due to temperature changes. Ancient people said: "If foreign smells live in the teapot, fill it with boiling water and place it under a stream of cold water, and if you do not take it out immediately, then after the cold water drains, its original spirit will return again."

By removing sediment, you correct defects.

Every time after using the teapot, you should immediately shake out the tea bottom and then rinse it with hot water, removing sediment, tea leaves and drops of infusion for the purpose of maintaining hygiene. Some comrades need to cultivate "tea mountains inside the teapot"; after brewing tea, they constantly leave used leaves or a small amount of tea infusion inside the teapot so that it absorbs the tea spirit. From a practical point of view, this is not the best method: if the leaf languishes in the teapot, sooner or later sour foreign odors appear there, which is harmful to the teapot. Tea slops also turn sour, and the teapot absorbs all this nastiness.

To stroke and admire.

The worst thing for a teapot is when drops of oily nature fall on it, dirtying it. If something greasy dripped on the body of the teapot, you can stroke the Yixing teapot with your hands, wiping off the dirt. If the dirt is more serious, you can slightly moisten a thin cloth with detergent and rub it lightly, and then finish cleaning with your hands, giving the teapot the opportunity to shine and reveal the nature of its aesthetics. But, of course, you should not rush things, using oily products or tea water for rubbing, creating on the body of the teapot "the shine of a bald head of a Buddhist monk". There is no need to re-face antique teapots. The patina of ancient aesthetics left in them from old times is real evidence of their age. In a word, each specific teapot is suitable for a specific set of tips for caring for it, and it is completely unacceptable in this regard to act with each item according to a template.