Pairing tea with my Taiwanese clay teapot

I don’t use much clayware as I much prefer the versatility of ceramic materials, but I have read that duo zhi clayware is good for black teas and Pu-erh.

Thanks for your response! From the website description, I actually think Duo Zhi is the pot shape and the material is just generic purple clay from Taiwan. (However, I’m a complete beginner in teaware, so correct me if I’m wrong.) I don’t drink any puerh and like blacks in larger amounts, so this could be a problem.

Also, do you think this would be more appropriate in the general section?

Honestly, I’m not sure how different types of tea respond to different types of clay (again, huge fan of ceramic teawares here. I’m a relatively lazy person, and with ceramics, I don’t necessarily have to dedicate one brewing vessel to one specific type of tea.). I suppose you could probably use it for high mountain oolongs. I have seen people use Taiwanese purple clay vessels for them, so I know for a fact it is done. You could always use it for lower elevation or roasted oolongs if the previous option isn’t appealing.

I had a more specific idea I forgot to share in my previous post. After taking another look at the pot, I thought to myself, “If it were me, I would throw some baked baozhong in there and go to town.” But my answer to almost everything lately seems to involve some sort of baozhong, so you may want to take that suggestion with a grain of salt.

Glad to know the topic is in the right place.

I guess I’ll need to do some experimenting with the pot and see what works. I only have one other clay pot, which I’m using for roasted oolongs. As a lazy person myself, I agree with you that ceramics are much easier and more versatile, but finding a 100 ml ceramic teapot is next to impossible. They all seem to be 150 ml or more.

By the way, where have you found good baozhong this year?

High mountain oolongs will do fine in the pot you have. I have two pots from TTC made with ordinary clay, one for Jade oolongs and the other for black tea. My palette doesn’t detect a big difference between brewing in these pots vs a ceramic gaiwan. Taiwanese clay is less porous than Yixing and the flavor enhancing affect is less significant. In the case of high mountain oolongs, it helps preserve more of the delicate top notes.

The main benefit of TTC clay pots that I see are good heat retention, avoids burning fingers, and clean up is less of a hassle because you’re not spending time scrubbing stains from ceramic teaware.

@VoirenTea: Those pots look nice, and I’m surprised to see so many in one place! Any other vendors for 100 ml glazed pots?

@Eastkyteaguy: Thanks for your baozhong suggestions! I was thinking of making a big order with TTC and might pick some up. Is their baked baozhong any good?

Nothing beats testing for yourself what works best with your pots! After all, everyone has different preferences.

That said, Taiwanese High mountain do well, in Porcelain, thin walled Zhuni (of course best if you can get one from the Qing dynasty, just kidding :)) or the wood fired claypots that are widely found in Taiwan.

The pots you got won’t make your teas worse, they just might not make them better :)

My poor purple clay teapot continues to languish unused, as I can’t afford a high-fired zhuni model for high-mountain oolongs and this is really the only tea type I’d want a pot for. For now, I’m using my 120 ml porcelain teapot for this type of tea.