FAQ of Yixing Zisha teapot

Gong Chun teapot

I love Zisha teapot, it’s not only a gift of nature but also crystallization of human art. In China if you’re really a tea lover or tea master, you’ll find a Yixing Zisha teapot in his home; you’ll find it in most of the tea house as well. Especially for tea ceremony, Zisha teapot will not be absent. 100 tea wares, led by Yixing.

1, Question: Can I use the same Yixing teapot to brew all kinds of teas?

Answer: Yes, you can, but not really. First, the Yixing Zisha teapot can absorb the tea juice that result amazing that is you can get the tea aroma when you only pour water into the teapot without tea. So you’d better use different teapot to brew different tea if you want to get that teawater without tea;

Second, black tea is full oxidation and green tea is oxidation-free tea, so you can choose tall teapot with narrow mouth to brew black tea and choose short teapot with wide mouth for brewing green tea in order to protect it from braised bad. For Oolong tea, you can choose middle height teapot, Chinese call this kind of teapot as MengChen teapot.

2, Question: How to know the value of a Yixing Zisha teapot?

Answer: there are 2 ways to figure it out, firstly choose it by the man who make it. There is a famous man theory, if the teapot is made by a famous master, it will deserve lot. There are a lot of famous Zisha masters, but the most famous 5 masters are Gong Chun(供春), Shi Dabin(时大彬), Chen Mingyuan(陈鸣远), Chen Mansheng(陈曼生), Gu Jingzhou(顾景舟), they are representative of each era. Fortunately if you find a teapot with their names, you’ll be good took care of in the rest of your life.

The second way is more complicatedly, you can choose it by its physical and the artistic. As physical,

• you can use your hand to feel how is the teapot, there are 3 kinds of clay, red clay, green clay and purple clay;
• use your fingers to take the teapot up see how is the balance;
• infuse some water and press the hole in the lid to see if the water can go out, if there is no water out means it’s good. Tight junction of the lid and the teapot is very important.;
• pour the water out to see if it goes out smoothly;

As the artistic, it’s personally, there will be poem, painting, writing, seal cutting etc on the teapot, good or not is according to your level of appreciation.

3, Question: When I bought a new Yixing teapot, do I need to do anything before brew it?

Answer: Yes, there is some earth smell with the new teapot and some dust maybe, you can put the new teapot into water with some tea or old Tofu or tender sugarcane root, and heat it slowly for an hour. This is named opening teapot.

4, Question: How to raise a Yixing Zisha teapot?

Answer: Raising? Am I wrong? No, it’s real, raising a Yixing teapot is just like raiseing a baby, you’ll have feeling when you have more time with him. There are some rules you should follow:

• clean it with water only, no detergent or other cleaners;
• clean the teapot after you finish the brewing, and keep it dry;
• keep it away from other smells, dust;
• don’t pack it up, you use it more it will get more beautiful;
• watering some tea water onto the surface of the teapot when you’re drinking.

5, Question: The teapot gets weird smell, what can I do?

Answer: Our ancestors have found a way to resolve this problem. Pouring some hot water into the teapot for few seconds, pout it out then put the hot teapot into cold water. Repeat it for several times, the weird smell will disappear.