How to choose your teapot:
When choosing your teapot you need to consider what type of tea you are going to prepare. Will it be loose tea or teabags is the first question you need to ask yourself. To be quite blunt if you are preparing teabagged tea I would just stick with a standard ceramic teapot and follow the old rule of "one teabag for each person and one for the pot."
So let's assume you have decided you want to brew some loose leaf tea. You know need to decide which type of tea you are going to brew. For the rest of the article I will split up into the main tea types, that being: green, black, white, oolong, Puerh and herbal.
White and Green tea:
I have grouped these two teas together because I feel that their delicate natures require them to use similar types of teapot.
For these teas such as Silver Needle or Long Jing the best type of pot to use is a glass one with an infuser. I recommend glass because being able to see the tea brew will help you know when it is ready. You will be able to witness the colour of the water changing and when you drink tea on a regular basis you will be able to use this colour palette to know when your drink has brewed without needing a timer!
Black tea:
In general this is the hardiest type of tea and can therefore be brewed in a normal ceramic pot. However, as with green and white, if you want to use the colour of your tea as a guide for strength then glass is ideal. Teapots with removable infusers are great for black tea as you can prevent over brewing by simply removing the infuser when it is ready and placing to the side for your subsequent brews.
Oolong tea
You have two choices for Oolong tea but I will only focus on one as the other is the perfect brewing receptacle for Puerh so I will discuss that later.
For Oolong I would suggest a Gaiwan. This is a small bowl with a lid that you fill quite full of leaves and brew in small amounts. The benefits of the Gaiwan are that you are brewing the tea in such small amounts that you always empty the bowl completely meaning your tea does not continue to brew resulting in bitter tea and you drink in small but concentrated amounts which means that you get a more intense flavour from the cup.
Oolongs are best drunk from Gaiwans because of they can be infused so many times.
Puerh
Puerh is ideally drunk from a Yixing Teapot. This is a special teapot made from purple clay. The best ones are made by Yixing Masters and can cost thousands of pounds. Yixing pots become seasoned with age and can only be used for one type of tea. So if you brew a Puerh in your Yixing once, that is the only type of leaf you should brew in that pot. This is because the porous nature of the clay absorbs the flavour of the leaves and creates a patina on the inside of the pot. This will enhance the taste of your brew each time.
Herbals
Herbals are another one that I think go very well in glass teapots. This is purely for aesthetical reasons. Many tisanes are made using fruits and flowers that will colour the water and it is a shame to have this covered up by opaque materials.
As a general rule I do not advise using metal pots for any tea because the metal absorbs too much heat and in my opinion it negatively affects taste too.
What do you think?
When choosing your teapot you need to consider what type of tea you are going to prepare. Will it be loose tea or teabags is the first question you need to ask yourself. To be quite blunt if you are preparing teabagged tea I would just stick with a standard ceramic teapot and follow the old rule of "one teabag for each person and one for the pot."
So let's assume you have decided you want to brew some loose leaf tea. You know need to decide which type of tea you are going to brew. For the rest of the article I will split up into the main tea types, that being: green, black, white, oolong, Puerh and herbal.
White and Green tea:
I have grouped these two teas together because I feel that their delicate natures require them to use similar types of teapot.
For these teas such as Silver Needle or Long Jing the best type of pot to use is a glass one with an infuser. I recommend glass because being able to see the tea brew will help you know when it is ready. You will be able to witness the colour of the water changing and when you drink tea on a regular basis you will be able to use this colour palette to know when your drink has brewed without needing a timer!
Black tea:
In general this is the hardiest type of tea and can therefore be brewed in a normal ceramic pot. However, as with green and white, if you want to use the colour of your tea as a guide for strength then glass is ideal. Teapots with removable infusers are great for black tea as you can prevent over brewing by simply removing the infuser when it is ready and placing to the side for your subsequent brews.
Oolong tea
You have two choices for Oolong tea but I will only focus on one as the other is the perfect brewing receptacle for Puerh so I will discuss that later.
For Oolong I would suggest a Gaiwan. This is a small bowl with a lid that you fill quite full of leaves and brew in small amounts. The benefits of the Gaiwan are that you are brewing the tea in such small amounts that you always empty the bowl completely meaning your tea does not continue to brew resulting in bitter tea and you drink in small but concentrated amounts which means that you get a more intense flavour from the cup.
Oolongs are best drunk from Gaiwans because of they can be infused so many times.
Puerh
Puerh is ideally drunk from a Yixing Teapot. This is a special teapot made from purple clay. The best ones are made by Yixing Masters and can cost thousands of pounds. Yixing pots become seasoned with age and can only be used for one type of tea. So if you brew a Puerh in your Yixing once, that is the only type of leaf you should brew in that pot. This is because the porous nature of the clay absorbs the flavour of the leaves and creates a patina on the inside of the pot. This will enhance the taste of your brew each time.
Herbals
Herbals are another one that I think go very well in glass teapots. This is purely for aesthetical reasons. Many tisanes are made using fruits and flowers that will colour the water and it is a shame to have this covered up by opaque materials.
As a general rule I do not advise using metal pots for any tea because the metal absorbs too much heat and in my opinion it negatively affects taste too.
What do you think?
For a full range of chinese teas and teaware check out LuLin Teas. They specialise in the Chinese teas such as Green tea, Oolong tea and Puerh tea.
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