Sunday, June 25, 2006

My First Ever Yixing Teapot

This Yixing was purchased sometime in 1992 in Singapore, while I was still a secondary school student in that country. It is nothing to show off about, as I think the workmanship is of so-so quality. I didn't know it back then. I thought it was so cool to own a Yixing pot with etched Chinese caligraphy on its body. It is now mostly unused and just a nostalgia piece. It leaks from the top lid, it doesn't pour well, and it drools too much. A horrible performer!

As far as I can remember, I bought this teapot for around SGD $30. At today's exchange rate, it would be about USD $19. It's been abused, neglected and seen many tea varieties, from oolong to pu-erh to green as well as jasmine (gasp!). R
ecently I decided to re-boil and re-season the pot with dark Taiwanese oolong. I'll keep using it from time to time when I'm brewing tea just for myself.

4 comments:

MarshalN said...

I can see how this pot will pour poorly, but hey, old pots do have sentimental values.

I threw away my first one after it suffered MASSIVE mould.

~ Phyll said...

Oooh, yeah, this one also experienced light mould after I forgot to take the leaves out for a week or so. I wanted to perform the restoration project with the dental cleanser (insipired by teafiles blog), but reversed my plan after re-boiling the pot and saw that it's not in such a bad shape.

MarshalN said...

Mine was basically covered in mould inside, because I left some wet TGY leaves in it and totally forgot about it for a month or so. It smelled weird (an odd fragrance+mould). It was full of fibre like stuff. It was green.

Adrian Baxter said...

Well, it may not perform well, but it is very nice to look at! If it were me, I would probably keep it on display.