The greatest distance in the world might be loving teapots in your heart, yet always feeling something is missing when you hold one.
Perhaps it's nothing more than some careless habits that gradually distance you from a fine Teapot.
Accumulating Tea Stains, Cultivating a “Tea Mountain”
In modern life, with its fast pace, Tea drinking is often a moment of respite amidst busyness. Often, before finishing a pot of tea, we casually set it aside and rush off. The next time we drink tea may be much later.
The result is that the tea leaves or tea soup are left in the pot for too long, accumulating stains, which some people mistakenly call nurturing a “tea mountain.” Not only is this unbeneficial to health, but the resulting mottled stains also detract from the beauty of a zisha (purple clay) teapot.
Steeping Tea Without Warming the Pot
In winter, when the pot's temperature is low, pouring hot water directly into it can cause cracking. The correct approach is to warm the pot with warm water before steeping tea.
Even if it's not winter, after rinsing the pot with cold water, do not immediately steep tea or pour hot water into it to warm it up. Instead, place it in a warm room to let it naturally warm up, then warm it again before steeping tea.
A Little Knowledge Can Be Dangerous
Sometimes, seeing a black or white spot, one might immediately conclude it's a defective product; seeing a gray-green clay color, one might believe it's toxic; finding white sand grains in the pot, one might insist it's a chemical teapot…
Thinking oneself has keen eyes to spot inferior products, one actually misses out on good teapots.
Frequent Tea Drinking, Lazy Teapot Cleaning
Over time, a zisha teapot that was once as smooth as a fifteen-year-old girl's skin becomes like a rough and unkempt man. Eventually, when one decides to clean the pot, using a coarse polishing cloth carelessly ruins a fine teapot.
Baking soda and a soft-bristled brush are teapot-cleaning wonders; never use a coarse cloth, as the teapot fears this.
Steeping Tea Without Consideration, Causing Black Stains
Theoretically, a zisha teapot is suitable for any type of tea. However, matching the pot's characteristics with the tea's characteristics can better bring out their best qualities.
For example, light-colored clays are not suitable for steeping Black Tea, Pu'er tea, or dark tea. Especially after steeping dark tea, pots made of original green clay or dun clay tend to absorb black tea stains, causing artificial black stains.
Purchasing Teapots Solely for Decoration or Storage
Purchasing a teapot completes only half of the collection process. The other half involves daily care and appreciation. Buying a teapot without enjoying it, or setting it aside, or merely using it as a vessel for tea—drinking the cooled tea in one gulp—what happened to gently stroking it? What happened to savoring the subtle changes during steeping?
An ancient saying goes, “Neglecting small matters leads to great loss.” When appreciating teapots, one should not adopt a casual or indifferent attitude. It must be acknowledged that while there are many zisha teapots, there are even more mass-produced ones. However, we should not determine our attitude towards them based on whether they are mass-produced.
Please don't let bad habits distance you from fine teapots. This would not only waste the money spent on purchasing them but also betray the love for teapots.
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