Half-Handmade Yixing Teapot drips
I recently purchased my first teapot. It’s a new, 170ml, half-handmade pot from a reputable tea merchant for a little over $100.00. During the pour it drips a little, around 3 or so drops out of the lid seam, down the front. Is this normal for a pot at this price?
The lid has around a millimeter of slack when seated. Putting my finger over the air hole stops the stream immediately. I can fill it 2/3, put my thumb over the spout and turn it upside down and the lid stays on.
I’ve never used a Yixing teapot, so I have no idea. I’d ask the vender but I don’t want to embarrass myself, if dripping is normal at this price point. :) — Thanks
I think it is just squiring the seal when it drips. Having the flow stop and the lid seat good when blocking the spout is perfectly acceptable. The material is just as important as the design as well.
Here’s a video of the pot in action:
http://www.videosprout.com/video?id=fd77955e-d26e-4386-8880-e8a929e12bd5It is fairly normal for almost any type of teapot, Yixing or otherwise to drip a little. If it only three or four drips I wouldn’t worry about it. Just out of curiosity who did you buy it from. My favorite source for Yixing is Missteapots on EBay.
http://stores.ebay.com/missteapots/
Thanks for the link AllanK. :) When she says “handmade” is she meaning half-handmade? I was under the impression that a full handmade pot should start around $200.00 or more. There are quite a variety of pots there. As to who sold me the pot, follow me and I’ll respond privately.
Normal to me. If you do the initial part of the pour in a not-so-vertical fashion, the tea liquor will only come out the spout, I’m quite sure and then you can get more vigorous with the pour. Also, I see you are not filling pot to brim. If you do, you may find that water around the rim of the teapot seals it a bit and prevents the dripping lid issue. Gongfu cha can be sloppy sometimes and that is part of the fun :) Let’s get wet!
Even if you don’t pursue the full-blown gungfu “ritual,” I highly recommend that you saturate the outside of the pot with your hot water before your first brew. You do two things with this: you heat up the ceramic so that you are more consistent with your initial brews, and also it makes the lid seating wet, which will give you the surface tension needed for an air-right seal.
I’m assuming you already realize that yixing pots are messy by nature. I mean, a tea tray for them is essentially a wooden sink. With that in mind, I’m also assuming that your problem with this is that you paid a lot of money for something that you believe to not be perfect… which I totally understand. Try the intake water pour that I recommend and see if that doesn’t fix your problem.
Some people believe the evaporative cooling caused by pouring hot water over a clay pot actually makes the pot cool faster. I believe someone actually tested this out and found it to be true.
Filling all the way to the top won’t stop drips either. You just need to pour a little slower to prevent the tea liquor from going all the way up to the lid and then dripping out. OP, If you slow down your pour a little you won’t have any drips.
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