How To Choose A Teapot

In this video, I am going to show you how to choose a tea pot. In front of me, I have different colored and different sized Chinese yixing popo clay teapots. Despite the name popo clay, yixing clay can have very different colors.

One of the things to look out for in a standard shape teapot, like this, is that the lid is well fitted but still loose. Well-fitted will stop the aroma from escaping and loose so you can still remove the lid easily. Another thing you need to look for easy pouring is that the handle, the opening, and the spout are all on the same line.

The only way to look for that characteristic is to turn the pot upside down on a flat surface like so. Of course, on certain pots, you can't expect to look for that quality because of the specific design. The other thing you need to look for is the filter inside the teapot.

In this pot, we have a Nastur round ball filter whereas, in this one, is five or six holes. There is no filter in this pot. Sometimes, when my tea friends come to Tea House, they look at a teapot and really like it because of its color or its shape.

What is more important, really, is to choose a pot that is suitable for the tea that they want to brew. For a pot like this, without a filter, we tend to use it for brewing smaller tea leaves. This, with a Nastur ball shaped filter, we tend to use for larger tea leaves.

This is to ensure that the tea leaf does not block the spout when you pour out. Another thing to look for when you buy a teapot is the pitch you hear when you hit it with something. Listen to the pitch of this teapot versus this one.

This is a much higher pitch compared to when I hit this particular clay. The higher the pitch, the higher the fire that is used to fire this clay. Therefore, the better the clay will be, the more durable, and possibly the less toxic the natural clay will be.

The other teapot you can use is the Chinese Gaiwan. This is made with ceramic or porcelain. As you can see, it is glazed in here, whereas the yixing clay pot is not glazed.

Because of the fact that it is glazed, you can use it to brew any tea that you want and it will not affect the flavors of different teas. Also, it doesn't retain heat very well. So, it is very suitable for brewing the more lightly oxidized tea or the unoxidized tea like green tea.

The popo clay pot does retain heat quite well so you want to choose tea that can stand a little bit of heat. This is how you choose a teapot. .