This gets more use than any of my other gaiwans thanks to the very small amount of tea required to fill it – I usually use around 3.5 grams. I usually drink tea before I leave for work at 8am, so unless I want to get up very early, I can’t stretch a session out for hours. As such, to get the maximum number of steeps out of my tea, I need to use a small brewing vessel.
I gave this a 100 rating, but it isn’t perfect for every tea. No vessel is! This one’s ideally suited to most teas that require under-boiling temperatures, but it struggles to retain enough heat for hei cha or sheng. Even some oolongs taste a little watery brewed in here. I’ve also found a few teas with leaves long enough to stick out the sides of this before they grow limp in the hot water. However, solving either of these ‘problems’ would require compromising this gaiwan’s qualities (by making it retain too much heat for delicate teas, and by increasing its volume), so I don’t consider them real issues with the vessel.
I still use this gaiwan frequently a few years later. I mainly use it when I want a small amount of a good hongcha and for green high mountain oolong. Sometime greens and whites find their way into it but never puerh.