Yixing Teapots: Why Are They so Popular?

Yixing teapots are available in many colors. But most often, people want the teapots in their original color - which is the mixture between red and brown, with a touch of purple. Yixing teapots are small and always accompany with small yet elegant Yixing tea cups. These teapots are hand-made from a special kind of soil that mainly available in the Yixing region in China. There is many different clay color that contributes to the different color of teapots.

But the most common and abundant clay has a dark brown color with a touch of purple. These teapots are often called Purple Sand teapots. The soil that makes up the teapots has many interesting characteristics. The soil is very absorbent and resistant to high temperature. Due to the 1st characteristic, teapots can preserve the taste of your tea once the tea is brewed for the first time. For this reason, it's a good idea to use one teapot for your most favorite tea.

Brewing different teas in one teapot can result in mixture of fragrance and the taste. This can give you either a pleasant or a weird tea. The resistance of yixing clay can help spread the heat slowly and evenly. The tea will less likely to be over-brewed. This trait also prevent the handle from overheat, causing inconvenience when pouring tea.

Prepare new teapots

Some teapots when put in shelves are already prepared. This means they already get rid of the smell for you.
But if the teapots are so new, they still can have an earthy fragrance. This is not a big problem. We can fix this easily.
Before you can use the new teapot you just bought, you need to get rid of the muddy smell because it will definitely affect your tea later.

Here are the steps that you can do to have a nice and clean teapot:

1) Place your new teapot in a container and boil it for 15 minutes. This kind of teapot can easily change color depending on the temperature. The higher the temperature, the darker the teapot will become.

2) Take the teapot out and dry it completely. Put lots of strong black tea into the container in step 1. Submerge the teapot into the tea water for 6 hours. Do not expose the teapot to sunlight.