Are you about to become serious about tea and ready to invest in some teaware? Read This First.
It is a wonderful spring day and the king’s cauldron is fully filled with natural spring water, slowly coming to a boil. The wind blows the leaves of a forgotten leaves of the tea tree in the corner of the imperial garden. The leaves accidentally land in the cauldron, and the first cup of tea is born and the emperor Shen Nong is the first human ever to experience the effects of caffeine as he sips from a bamboo cup.
The cauldron and cup were for many years the prime implements of tea preparation. The tea leaf was boiled like any other herb. The brewed liquor was bitter and medicinal, usually mixed with ginger, goji berries and even salt to mask the flavor. As tea evolved, it was the tea ceremony and the brewing tools that guided people’s’ relationship with Chinese tea. In the Song Dynasty age the simple boiled tea leaf method was reformed into a ceremony involving a mortar and pestle, and grinding tea into a powder before whisking it in a bowl.
Water is the mother of Chinese tea, and the teapot is its father...
Today there are many ways to brew tea. Every year, new methods are being introduced, and new ideas are being explored. Today's tea lovers are free to play with our tea, brewing different ways we please and finding the methods that suit us best. If we want, we can involve rituals of every culture. Through this, the tools we use to brew our tea are deep statements about our connection with cultural history.
The objects we use to brew our tea do not just connect us to the past. Every tea ware has a real influence on the flavor and aroma of finished cup of tea. Every leaf reacts differently to different materials and their shapes. The same tea brewed with the same water for the same amount of time will taste significantly different in yixing teapots, gaiwans, and glass pitchers. Given this, it is no surprise that every grower I work with has their own preferred way to show their tea, honed in through years of tasting and evaluation. Every tea region has preferred ways of brewing tea that accentuate different qualities in their Chinese teas while building each region’s unique culture.
In general, tea tools and preparation play a huge role in balancing aroma and flavor: on one end, you can brew teas with lots of aroma with light flavor, or you can steep at the opposite extreme for huge flavor and light aroma. The secondary dimension of thickness/body is very closely related to the flavor-aroma balance of a tea, as is the nuance of the aftertaste.
There are so many ways to steep tea it can be challenging to try to find the “perfect” technique. The good thing is that in almost every situation, any brewing method brings out interesting and worthwhile observation of unique teas, so they are all worth exploring.
To guide your exploration of the “taste” of tea wares, read further...
Chemistry Is What This Is All About
On a simple chemical level, the material your brewing object consists of will influence the aroma of your tea. Only glass and highly vitrified materials such porcelain have zero chemical interaction with the liquid they hold.
Why is this so? It's all about all chemistry.
Water is a solvent, and at high temperatures, the potential for interaction between the water and your brewing vessel is high. That's why it is important to know how your teapot is fired and glazed.
Lead-based paints and other glazes with heavy metals are absolutely not suitable for regular use and will influence the flavor of your tea in a bad way. The minerals in Yixing teapots, however, can actually have a positive effect on the flavor and aroma of your tea. Metal tea pots are interesting for their ionic interactions. In fact, silver in particular is known in the tea world to actually purifying water. Copper too is used for antibacterial applications in water treatment. However, watch out for cast iron brewing vessels, as it can rust if not properly cared for and contaminate tea with an unpleasant metallic taste.
So where do I start?
When it comes to choosing a material for your teapot based on chemical interactions, glass and porcelain are the safest bets for the beginning brewer. More advanced users can also experiment with yixing pottery being useful for more specific brewing needs (especially for oolong and pu erh tea). See this video for a demonstration on how to hold a gaiwan.
to be continued....