Yixing Purple Clay Teapot Culture--- initiate and cultivate a new yixing purple clay teapot

A most serioused way to initiate a new yixing teapot if you have time to do it

1)place the teapot with the lid uncovered, carefully place the pieces onto a cook ware which should be large enough to hold the water and be able to cover the entire yixing teapot.
2)Place some beancurd in the water and bring to a slow boil, since rapid boiling may damage your teapot since the pieces may possibly be hitting each other or hitting the walls in your cook ware.
3)slow boil for about an hour, let your teapot cool down in the cook ware with tea water still covering the entire teapot, let it stand for a day or so,
4)the next day you can take the teapot out and rub off any purple sand residue inside of your yixing teapot, rinse well with water only, place the teapot back into the cook ware with sugarcane and bring it to a slow boil again for around an hour or so. Let it cool down in your cook ware still covering with the tea water again,
5)the next day you may take out your yixing teapot and rinse it well with hot water. After this process, the air holes in your teapot are opened up and is ready for use. yixing teapot initial use prepare finished.

A brief  serioused way that don’t use the beancurd and sugarcane

1. First cleaning
After you got your Yixing pot, give it a quick rinse in clean water and then completely submerge it in clean water to soak overnight. ABSOLUTELY no cleaning agents of any nature.
Rinse the pot again and submerge it in a fresh batch of clean water in a deep pan on the stove. Bring the water to a boil, reduce fire and let boil for 5 minutes. Drain. Rinse the pot in fresh water once. The pot is now ready for priming.
2. Priming
Submerge the pot in fresh water in the pan and put over the stove again. Turn off the fire after it comes to a boil. Put the kind of tea that you want to use with this pot into the pan of hot water and cover, as if you are making a pan of tea, with the teapot in it. Let steep for over night.
Drain and rinse the pot in fresh water once and let air dry, lid open. Your pot is primed and ready for your first pot of tea.

A simple way for the yi xing teapot initial use

The above way that initiate a new yixing teapot for using cost long time. In fact it is not a must procedure to follow when you don’t have much time, so whatever…better than never, there is also simple way for the yi xing teapot initial use:
1. Fill your yi xing teapot with newly boiled water and allow the water to sit for 5 to 10 minutes. Drain the water.
2. Fill the teapot a second time with newly boiled water and add one teaspoon of your favorite loose tealeaves. Allow this tea to sit for a period of 5 to 10 minutes.
3. Drain the tea, your new yi xing teapot is ready for use!

Tips: If you ever made such mistakes, re-prime the pot all over again, but boil it with water two times in the cleaning step instead of once. (read the paragraph below for cleaning)

With continued use, the purple clay from which Yixing teapots are made will absorb the flavors of your tea, becoming more seasoned with each use. Over time, the color, flavor, and aroma of your tea will develop a richness that is unique to each teapot. For this reason, Many people dedicate a specific flavor of tea or at least a specific type of tea to each Yixing teapot.

If you’re getting an Yixing teapot and you want it to give you back the best flavor possible, you’re going to have to care for it properly. The means saving a little bit of each steeping to “feed” the pot (pour over the pot to help more tea get into the pores), the finer your pot, the more likely you are to use it, and the more likely you are to actually invest the time in caring for the pot properly.

STEP 1

Before using your prized Yixing teapot, checked how whether the air vent is clear of blockage. Test the flow of water and if it is not smooth, clear the holes inside the spout of any debris. Finally examined whether there are clay deposits within the teapot, which if present can be easily removed by scraping it with a wooden or bamboo piece.

STEP 2

Before using the teapot, determine which tea leaves you are going to brew in it. Do not brew different kind of tea leaves in the same teapot. Yixing clay is very porous that’s why it is such a good vessel for brewing tea as it’s able to retain the as well as trap tea particles in these pores. With frequent usage, more and more tea particles are trapped and every time you brew tea, fragrance is released which when mixed with the current brew makes the tea taste better than if it was brewed in a new teapot.

After you have determined the tea to use for this teapot, do not start using the teapot yet, but use it as a “Gong Dao” (justice) pot where tea is poured into it before being poured into tea cups.

STEP 3
Every time you brew tea, use the teapot as “Gong Dao” pot and always pour the first infusion (which we normally discard) over the exterior of the teapot. If possible, reserved the last infusion (which is already diluted) to rinse the exterior of the teapot. This enables the tea oil to stain the exterior of the teapot and helps patina to grow.
STEP 4
At the end of each session, letting the pot dry completely between uses (to avoid mold and to help the flavor “set” into the pot… if you use a wet post, then a lot of the flavor will just get washed away instead of building up nicely). Before the next session, repeat Step 3 again.
STEP 5
When you start brewing tea with this teapot, always rinsed the teapot (from cap down) with the first infusion. At the end of a session, use a tea cloth to wipe and polish the exterior surface of the teapot. Continue doing it for another 3 months and I guarantee that a rich patina will grow on the surface of the teapot.
Your teapot will start to look lovely and somehow you can swear that the clay seems very much different compared to when you first bought the teapot.
The above is what tea connoisseurs meant when they say “Yang Hu” or “cultivating a teapot”.

If your yixing teapot can in anyway contribute to this tasting, this ultimately aesthetic experience of the senses, it will in the end also make the tea taste better on a psychological level. Something coming out of a lovely vessel will make your more positively disposed towards the tea that’s coming out of it. This placebo effect should in turn help you taste more interesting things in the tea by helping to make you just a little more open minded and positive.