Friday, June 02, 2006

A Tale of Two Pots




In the past, Shui Xian family was most popular among older generations in Chaozhou, Fujian and Hong Kong. Since this tea is mostly roasted, the "greener" properties which create problems in elderly health are dramatically reduced. Nowadays, younger generations are more trends oriented towards the lighter, more fragrance oolong in these regions.

For Shui Xian to fully unfurled, the shape of the Yixing and it's lid-footing's height is very important.
Because of the larger leaves size and shape. Pot should be wider in body, shorter in height and have a larger opening. Longer footing creates a "pressing" function in the higher tea to water ratio among the more roasted group.

Medium roasted Shui Xian like Dan Cong should consider a thinner wall pot, since they are mostly more delicate. Heavier SX like Tie Luo Han or High Fire Chaozhou's SX should use thicker wall, almost like Cantonese TGI: http://chadao.blogspot.com/2006/04/yixing-pot-old-and-new.html. This solely depends on different level of roasting, the quality of the specimen and most importantly, the person's taste.

Top is thinner wall, short lid's footing pot for my Dan Cong. Bottom is my thicker wall, long lid's footing pot for aged/high roasted SX. They both have been serving me over 8 years.

2 comments:

~ Phyll said...

Hey Toki, impressive Yixings and blog you got here too! Thanks for visiting my humble blog. I've read yours a few months before I started mine, and I've always been impressed with the amount of info you present here.

As for Salon le Mesnil, not yet. So far, some of the most sublime wines I can remember were the '76 Dom and '04 Gunderloch TBA.

I help moderate a wine forum called www.winexiles.com. Hope you can stop by and join the chatter.

Cheers, Phyll

toki said...

I try to register to your forum, still waiting for my approval code... urhhh.

Can't not wait to share my experience of the nectar of life with your group.

And Thanks for the a praise.

 
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.