Using Teaware To Amplify A Tea Session

How do I brew my tea?

I use a kettle to boil my water, a teapot or gaiwan (rarely) to brew the tea leaves and a few porcelain teacups to drink my tea.

There is no secret ingredient. I do not sing to my tea. I do not brew my tea in the middle of a rice field or against a backdrop of a waterfall. I am just like you. We mainly brew and drink our tea at home.

In the course of my tea drinking adventures, I want to think I found that there are a few ways to improve or make a tea session more fun and more tasty in terms or taste and aroma when you are at home. I can tweak the 3 main utensils in the tea brewing setup - the kettle, the teapot and the teacup.

Caveat - you must be a serious tea drinker to be able to distinguish the differences in your tea after using such utensils. I would consider a serious tea drinker if you brew and drink Chinese tea at least 3 times a week.

1. Teacup. I found that older Chinese porcelain teacups make the tea taste better. Yes, even my whisky taste better in them. They are still relatively inexpensive. An unused 90s Chinese porcelain teacup can still be purchased for below $5.

2. Teapot. Using a clay teapot can affect the taste and aroma of your Chinese tea. A good seasoned yixing teapot is the preferred brewing vessel used by many serious Chinese tea drinkers. I do recommend you take a look at the Taiwanese Lin Ceramics purion teapot. I found old pu erh tea seems more amplified using the purion teapot. Teapots are overall more expensive than teacups. You will be looking at about $60-$120 for a decent teapot.

3. Kettle. Use a clay kettle or the famous Japanese iron kettle (aka tetsubin) to boil your water. Many tea drinkers claimed the water tasted sweeter or tasty.  Japanese tetsubins are expensive. My last Japanese tetsubin purchase last year was about $200 and it was a small sized one as well.

Such tweaks are not necessary in a tea setup. With just $10, I can have a fantastic tea session as well. A plain white porcelain and 2 porcelain teacups would be more than sufficient to have a wonderful tea session.

The improvements in a tea session using such tweaks can only be distinguished by a hardcore tea drinker.  These improvements are quite small but whether to splash out a little money for these small improvements is a fun discussion among friends during a tea session.   

In the midst of the virus situation, I wish all my readers well and to stay safe.  If you are a essential service provider, I would like to say a big thank you.