Just for Fun: Take this quiz to see which tea brewing style suits you best!
My result was Yixing… Though, I do have yixing pots… I don’t actually use them very much. I prefer my adorably teeny, tiny, 90 ml porcelain teapot. It’s so great for rare teas that I don’t want to drink too much of, but still want to enjoy every aspect of them. And because I drink such a wide variety of things, porcelain is just easier for me. :)
The description for those who got Yixing as a result was quite accurate. I love pets (inanimate and living), super duper specialized things that aide in the goal of perfection, and tiny things!! So tiny!! Ahhh… Every time I look at my antique 60ml yixing pot and my 90ml porcelain pot, I just squee! Eeeee! How can anyone resist something so tiny?!
I got Yixing as my result too, despite that my go-to teaware is a gaiwan. I will say though I just got my first yixing a couple days ago and I am absolutely loving it. I think Yixing was the hidden tea addiction I needed to find. I’ve turned my nose up at them for a long time now simply because I wasn’t ready to make the price commitment if I wasn’t convinced there’d really be a big difference in flavor.
It wasn’t until a friend brewed me some Tie Guanyin in her yixing pot seasoned for light, green style oolongs (mostly the Taiwanese high mountain stuff) that I realized I needed to get one. Those are my favorite types of tea and I had no idea how awesomely a yixing pot could affect them. It makes the flavors more complex for sure, especially if you use a few different ones in the same pot that have complementary flavors. I’ve been seasoning my new one with Gui Fei and alternating it with a Jin Xuan from Mt. Dong Ding. Oh man, so good.
I can see myself getting another yixing or two. I think mostly I’d like to have one for Wuyi Oolong. As for other oolongs and puers, I really prefer a gaiwan. Gaiwan is my weapon of choice for most times, but yixing really is fun to care for and bring out for a special tea or occasion.
Oh, and my day-to-day tea item I use the most is a purple clay gaiwan with a white glazed interior. It’s only 100ml. I prefer the small size for daily use as well. My favorite gaiwan is larger than this, so it doesn’t get quite as much use. Oddly my little yixing pot is 170ml and makes a lot more than most of my other teawares. I’m surprised it holds so much. It is really little!
I completely understand the turning your nose up at yixing. Forever, the only yixing I owned was an old one that was given to me. Jingdezhen porcelain, I have been told many times, is one of the highest quality materials to brew tea in. Thus, my jingdezhen ceramic collection started to get out of control. I love how simple that porcelain is and how it just showcases the tea as a whole without any distractions. It wasn’t until I saw the incredibly teeny antique yixing pot at TTC that I was intrigued enough by the clay to purchase it. Now, one of my yixing pots is for Wuyi actually (my 60 ml)! My other is for shou (I think it’s about 100-125 ml).
Where are you sourcing your Gui Fei? Gui Fei is one of my favorite Taiwanese teas.
Now that you have mentioned how great gaoshan oolongs taste in a seasoned raw clay pot, I may need to pick one up from Taiwan Tea Crafts.
How do you like the feel of the purple clay gaiwan with glazed interior? Those types of gaiwans have always intrigued me.
The Gui Fei I have is from Green Terrace Teas, a company in Taiwan that opened earlier this year. They did free samples in exchange for online reviews when they opened. Did you get in on that? I know some others on Steepster did. Now, it doesn’t look like they even sell samples, but maybe you could write them and request some?
http://www.greenterraceteas.com/collections/premium-teas/products/gui-fei-oolong
It’s a bit of an investment at that price, but 150g is a pretty good amount of tea. I wish it came in a smaller and more affordable size though. I was lucky to have a 20% off coupon for my order since I completed reviews for all three tea samples sent to me. This Gui Fei is killer though. Mostly I taste notees of magnolia, rose and apple. It’s sweet and round.
When I got my purple clay gaiwan it was my first experience with unglazed clay teaware and I almost didn’t want to keep it. I didn’t like how it felt and that it got fuzzy when i dried it with a paper towel (this led to me buying my first gongfu tea towel), but it has grown on me so much. It took me some time to get used to the feeling, but after a lot of use it is more soft and “fleshy” feeling and less chalkboard feeling. Haha. Also it is the perfect shape and size for my paw to pick it up with a really comfortable grip, which is the top reason it’s become my favorite. That and because it holds exactly 100ml of water up to the lid, which makes measurements really easy. :3
Chawan. Huh. I probably should go out and try that then? =)
The description makes it sound like the lazy option, but I brew grandpa style 80% of the time and totally think that’s the laziest option around. =D Making matcha sounds quite complicated.
It’s only complicated if you get into the tea ceremony aspect, I think. Otherwise it can be as simple as putting a couple of scoops of matcha into a bowl and a couple ounces of water and then whisking it vigorously for half a minute or less.
There are steps to preheat the bowl usually kind of like with Gongfu Cha, and a lot of people sift the matcha to make sure it doesn’t clump, but in general I have found there isn’t really much complicated about making matcha in a chawan. It’s just the whisking part is hard. It takes a lot of practice to get the right consistency. I still haven’t gotten that down yet!
Gaiwan! Which is my favorite but I don’t do it much anymore…now i am going to once this weekend :) fun quiz!
Thought I’d post this if anyone was interested in knowing:
The possibilities for the results were:
Teabags, Infuser, Tumbler, Teapot, Gaiwan, Chawan, Yixing Pot, and “Kyusu, Houhin, or Shiboridashi”, which I lumped into one result because it would only let me make 8 results.
I put those three in one group since they’re all made for Japanese green tea and function similarly.
Interestingly, as of yet the Japanese trio is the only result no one has gotten between my friends on FB and you all on Steepster.
The Japanese trio must be pretty obscure – I’m a bit of a Japanophile, and even study Sado a bit, and have never heard of them.
Okay, turns out I am familiar with kyuusu brewing – I’ve just always assumed that Tokoname was the name of the teapot shape. Apparently it’s really a location name! So cool – I love steepster, always something new to learn. :D
Hmm, the Kyusu is pretty commonplace in Japan. The asian markets around here even sell them. Shiboridashi and Houhin are less common I think. Seems they’re mostly favored by gyokuro fanatics. None of the three are as popular in the west as Tetsubin (cast iron teapots), and I suppose I could have made a totally separate result for those, but as the quiz only let me do 8, I’d lump Tetsubin in with Teapots.
Japanese teawares are definitely the newest for me to discover. Apparently the side-handle kyusu is called “yokode kyusu”. It’s the most common design I see. And yeah, Tokoname is the region and also the name of the pottery style for making Tokoname-ware Japanese tea pots. :)
Yixing. In reality, I use a two-cup tetsubin and a one-serving glass pot nearly every single day for, respectively, green tea and oolong and/or black. For me, a fine tea day involves some of each of these food groups: green, oolong, and black!
I do own a couple of yixing, but I have not put the effort in yet (yet…) to season them properly. I also have not been inducted into the pu-erh cult quite yet (also: yet…). It’s only a matter of time, I suppose, so maybe this all fits in with OCD and “info sponge” anyway!
I got teapot which really suits me perfectly. I actually have a Breville, the laziest tea brewing ever.
I loved your quiz and spent over an hour doing other quizzes. Thanks for introducing me to the site. (Others probably have done these before but it was new to me) Lots of fun! :-D
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