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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The staining of the Yixing

Use Comparison

These are 3 nearly identical little yixing, 2 of which are used extensively, (one for High Fire Tie Guan yin, the other for Yancha), while the other has been let practically unused.  Can you tell from the above photo which one is which? 

What if I post close ups of them in pairs:


Highfire TGY and Unused
Yancha and Unused
Highfire TGY and Yancha

The first two pictures have the unused pot, and it would have been a bit more of a challenge if I rubbed out the very apparent tea stains on the ones that I use often.  But looking at those first two pictures again, its amazing how with use in with roasted teas, the yixings not only get a nice shine to them, they also turn a bit more red with use.  In the last photo the pot on the right I have had the longest, and its almost developing a slightly rusty character to it with all the use of tea.  The real question will be is that just due to being used longer, or is there something special in the Highfire TGY that causes that that the Yancha does not have?

2 comments:

Leaf said...

Yay! I was able to guess on the first picture, before I read the rest of your post. ^^

I'd say that high fire oolong usually gives redder or at least "coal-er" tea... which to me might explain the rusty feel and coloration. Yancha's roasting (if roasted at all) is more "gentle", decreasing the possibility of the leaves to retain smokes and fire remains.

My humble opinion. ^^

Chris Birkett said...

I posted a similar photo of my zen8tea mini pots last year. One was used for yancha, the other was mostly unused. Quite a noticeable difference in colour from the tea staining.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bob_mcbob/6508692193/

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