Cleaning ceramic teapot after use

Thanks to the question from a tea friend on Face Book, Ferdinand ludo, who asked what do we do to clean the Yixing or other clay tea pot after each use.

Besides useful advice from other tea lovers, i.e. dedicate one teapot to one type of tea, rinse the tea pot with hot water inside and outside. I advised further as follow:

• With new naked ceramic tea ware, suggest to cook the teapot thoroughly till the strange dusty flavors are gone, then cook the teapot further with the tea that plan to use it in the future and cook it through again.
• After each use, clean the teapot with hot water and then let it either air dry or dry it with a soft towel
• The more you use the Yixing or naked ceramic tea pot, the longer we use the teapot, the darker color it will become.
• If you dedicate teapot for one type of tea, the teapot will eventually has some fine flavors from that tea, but it ‘s not intentionally to scent your teapot
• I would never use naked teapot either Yixing, Caozhou or other, with aromatic tea, certainly I would avoid use such teapot with teas with essential oil, such as many milky oolong sold in the market. (Actually, in our centre there are only pure and authentic quality tea, but no aromatic teas)
• The flavor from pure authentic quality tea or tea ware won’t give you any flavors problem. Even when it starts to develop flavors due to long time usage, the natural flavour are still very mild and not upsetting.
• Darker color is not same concept as stains on teapot. If you clean the tea pot with hot water after each use, then you won’t have stain problem.
• The naked ceramic gives a warm woody feeling to connect with earth, so normally I dedicate either naked ceramic or wood-fired tea wares with traditional Oolong. With light fermented oolong, I prefer porcelain, because porcelain will give more complete reflections on flavours and tastes. Subject to the fermentation and roasting level, then I play with the fun of using Yixing, Caozhou or wood-fired ceramic teapot.
• Some chemical blended teapot (also naked ceramic) could give very strong and unpleasant flavor. If I couldn’t get rid of those unpleasant chemical flavors after thorough preparation works in advance and afterwards, then I will seriously consider to use it or not. Notmally, not!
• Basically porcelain teaware fits with all tea types, the clay and glaze allow teapot give full reflections on flavours and tastes; however, Yixing, other naked ceramic and wood-fired tea ware will soften the sharpness in flavours and tastes, the fun with tea will then enter another domain with the matching tea with tea ware.
• One last thing about Yixing, Caozhou, naked ceramic or wood-fire ceramic tea ware is to avoid cleansing with detergent, certainly not in the washing machine.

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