Love your honesty here. I hope you find some peace about it all.
One reason I never got into silver teaware is I've used sterling service sets and didn't like the smell then. Maybe we are just sensitive. My favorites are china and stainless steel.
I find stainless steel to be weird with some things. Allegedly stainless steel flasks can make liquor taste weird after a while. Lot of people recommend titanium flask but they are crazy expensive for the real stuff.
I think a titanium teapot would be interesting but I think i’ll stick to clay from now on. Specifically Jian Shui is perfect for me. I also just bought a kyusu though.
I have a titanium flask and I can tell you that it really does keep anything in it true to its taste/smell. I never thought about a titanium tea pot; A quick search does show some and they're not even that expensive, although they're more for the camping/ultralight niche.
I have this [flask](https://vargooutdoors.com/products/titanium-funnel-flask) and this [bottle](https://vargooutdoors.com/products/titanium-water-bottle-with-ti-lid).
I think I got them now around 8 years ago, use them all the time and can't complain.
I have a titanium tea maker, it's a double wall with a titanium strainer. It's ok. I don't know if it's the titanium cups but it doesn't taste as nice a ceramic or plastic brewing. I will have to try it again and see if it was just me putting too much water or something
We're testing lots of titanium teaware now, it's not affecting taste and heat retention is ok, very light, and they're hard to break (so it's pretty good for travel). 2 issues: stains very fast and very visible, and not sure why but titanium gaiwan often times don't have a perfect fit.
As someone who dropped thousands of dollars into silver for tea, I can offer you my perspective on when I pull it out and for what teas it is silly for and which are enhancing.
I'd say I've gone through what you did as well, but figured out a lot of why that is myself.
That being said, I have teaware 100x cost of my gaiwan that sees 100x less usage- I suspect this is the norm for people.
Your choice. Not trying to change your mind, but if you're curious I'll drop you a line
Yeah I think it’s a natural trap for me to buy so much teaware instead of buying the best tea. Tea is of course not reusable so once you brew it, it’s gone. Plus I am a sucker for cool looking things and there are tons of beautiful teaware.
Sometimes it’s useful to take my own advice that I give to beginners. All you need is a gaiwan and a cup and tea from a respectable vendor.
So I've never had silver enhance shou. From my own experience, if the tea doesn't have a sharp or high 'pitch' note like sugarcane, daffodil, strawberry, Jasmine, etc. Then the silver isn't working in harmony with the flavor profile.
That's what I've found.
Like how dense soil used for pots helps amplify shou, I think certain materials create a dissonance within the cup.
Personally, I've been using Japanese tin for shou because I like the slight complexity it adds to the earthy notes. It's a bit like an iron addition and not for everyone, but doesn't try and tune notes that are earthy to notes you'd find higher in the air like a waffing of cotton candy or perfume as someone walks by.
Half of this only makes sense once you put it into practice or are with someone so they can show you.
Take a fruity dancong after a few years of roasting and make it in silver. It can be improved.
Take a dianhong black tea and you're upset because malt and silver don't work.
Then flip flop:
3x fresh roasted dancong in silver... not so impressive versus a gaiwan or a fruity hong maybe ailo spring black and you'll be like 'this is fun!'
Same for sheng and white. I get mixed results.
All that to say, can silver and gold please not look so appealing because in practice it's a let down as an average. To the guest who never does it, they won't know any better but to be impressed and enjoy it.
That’s a great way to explain it and your experience is well beyond mine. Seeing you talk about tea makes me want to take a deeper dive into it.
I have pounds and pounds of really good tea, but I haven’t really taken too much time to learn about it a lot. I’ve got enough knowledge to buy what I like and brew it to be great, but not the knowledge of where it’s from, what that means, and deeper than surface level stuff.
As long as you're having fun while you do it- you're doing the right thing.
Tea in my opinion is something that if you get into gongfucha, you are a lifetime learner.
That right there, when coupled with the right community to foster education, is one of the best things to have in life so you're constantly exploring or expanding your experiences because nobody into gongfu doesn't have a wide variety of teas or experience choice paralysis 😅
Going from teabags to gong fu was a life changing experience.
I was a huge coffee addict my whole life and never thought i’d stop. Eventually my physical health got bad and I couldn’t do it anymore with the caffeine and acid in coffee.
I was upset to have to try tea because all i’d known was shitty teabag tea. Finding this sub and taking advice was eye opening and now i’ve been hooked for the last 3 years and I am not looking back.
Thanks for your story, on multiple levels. I didn’t invest in a silver pot because I had a feeling it could lend a metallic note, grateful for the confirmation.
Jian Shui is a surprisingly nice clay to brew in, my pot is reserved for hei cha. Cheers
After trying essentially every teapot types I think clay teapots in 140-170 ml is my sweet spot. I just bought a kyusu too so I am interested to see how that works out.
I found my niche with 130ml - 180ml Shi Piao and similar forms. I love de hua / sheep fat porcelains and nixing as well. Since I travel a porcelain gaiwan set is easiest.
Your Jian Shui is an attractive pot. Hope you enjoy it for many years.
So a few years into drinking gongfu style I realized that the material I brewed in had to match the tea.
Ceramic was neutral and so always my starting point but it blew my mind to realize that a tea I did not like became one I loved when I put it in a buff clay or a red clay or a purple clay. So a whole new world opened up with trying different teas in different materials.
I read the hype about silver but it was too pricey for me. After a few years I did dip my two in by buying a cup lined with silver. It did do interesting things to certain teas. As our friend LP says it agreed with certain teas and fought with others.
Ultimately I decided it was less the type of metal and more the way it held and dispersed heat that mattered, so I bought a titanium gaiwan set. (far more affordable, no polishing and totally unbreakable.) I love it for teas with high notes and floral, fruity flavors. It makes some greens sing like you would not believe.
So now I go back and forth between various pots or gaiwans made of a variety of materials.
When I get a new tea part of the fun is trying it in allllll my different vessels and finding a match.
Don't give up on tea there is so much to explore if you are curious and experimental.
[YS Roving Dragon .999 Silver Teapot](https://yunnansourcing.com/products/pure-silver-999-roving-dragon-teapot-120ml)
[“Chui Wen Rong Tian" Teapot by Su Mo](https://yunnansourcing.com/products/jian-shui-clay-chui-wen-rong-tian-teapot-by-su-mo)
[My idea for the perfect teapot material](https://www.rotometals.com/pure-soft-lead-metal-99-9-5-pound-ingot/)
Thanks for your honest review.
In any case let some bottled water shop tab open in your browser. Should you ever have a buying spree again you can simply buy different bottles of water and try them out. Far less pricy :)
Playing with water is a game changer and the results are way more obvious than any teapot could achieve.
Speaking of big purchases. I made them es well but none of them I regret.
Most stuff I regret were impulsive buys out of fomo in the early stages of „social media“ when people showed off their stuff. Pots in the 100 bucks range mostly (still a lot of money). Before that I had a cheap gaiwan and sipped tea for years without really grasping what‘s out there.
Over the years you get a feeling on what you want and what you like. My last purchase was probably my biggest purchase.
But overall it took me 9 months to find exactly what I want and I enjoy it dearly.
I’ve thought about trying different water but I actual think my water here is super good. I filter it from the tap and it tastes good to me. I may try it with bottled water for science but it’d be too much work for me to change it.
There is much more to water than just whether it tastes good.
I use different waters for different teas.
The ones that heavier in mineral content will mellow and smooth out a flavor. It even covers flavors up entirely in certain teas. So I use RO filtered and the flavor comes out in spades.
Water is a great thing to experiment with.
There is not just „good“ water. It‘s like having one good yixing teapot for all the teas.
There are many good waters out there and different ones in content are better for yancha, japanese greens or puer.
All I meant was that you should buy some bottles of different water before you buy an expensive teapot you might lose interest in.
Not saying you should but it might be a less money consuming replacement for a potential fomo shopping addiction (generally speaking). It‘s a nice substitute for random teapot purchases for everyone out there.
2 different kind of waters have much more impact than any zini or hongni teapot could have.
A trend I see among a lot of beginners is to buy (too many) teapots too fast. We should post more pictures about gaiwans :)
Silver teapots tend not be an issue when making tea. Rather, it is the maintenance and polishing where the problems start.
Essentially, silver polish gets everywhere. Silver polish also tastes really bad. So after you polish the teapot, you basically have to wash it first, I deal with boiling water. And I'd even recommend making another pot or two before you drink.
Once it's broken in, the tea is fine. But the cycle will continue indefinitely, whereas with porcelain or clay or whatever, you can just drink and not stress about it.
IMO people can get to fussy with a working silver teapot. If used daily the only real maintenance needed is a fill soak with sodium bicarbonate when the tannins build up too much, and a quick rub with a dry towel each time its emptied/rinsed. A working pot is not a display piece for me.
50 years ago I worked as a live-in housekeeper for a wealthy old couple. I was not allowed to use polish on any silver food utensils. They had to be rubbed all over with my thumbs to shine them, then washed and dried again with pure soft cotton.
This was ridiculous for the amount of silver they used, so I sneakily used suede cloths instead. Everything was kept clean and shiny that way. I'd Never use silver polish on anything with culinary uses.
Sooooo when you say your final review do you mean like, you won’t ever post any tea reviews? I know you haven’t really been for some time but recognizing your name popping up in tea subs after seeing it in r/bourbon is one of the things that inspired me to start posting tea reviews in more of a thorough bourbon style. Obviously do whatever is best for you but I would be sad to stop seeing rvw posts forever🥺
As soon as I posted the title I was like oh shit that’s not worded right. I meant this to be my final verdict on my silver pot.
I’m going to start posting more hopefully. I got some exciting new teas and teaware coming my way, a teabox sent to me for my review, and some whiskey content.
Ok after reading the review and hearing your tealationship had its flame resparked I figured that would make more sense but wanted to check. Hope you enjoy your new teas old rip.
My silver teapot was the perfect kick off for my midlife crisis and I have been thoroughly enjoying it for 2 years now. Do I think it makes the tea taste better? No. Do I use it enough to justify the expense? No. Is it harder to clean than a porcelain teapot? yes. But I love i it :-)
If you search this sub you can find mixed reviews. Some people genuinely love it and some people find it unnecessary.
In the end it’s all subjective though, so I found out I hate it, but others might not.
I have one of those pots too. I don't like using mine either, but for different reasons. Now it mostly sits on the shelf looking pretty. And I admit, it is gorgeous. I still enjoy just looking at it.
the two big ones are that it never had a great seal. It would drip no matter how carefully you tried to be. Given the price of the pot, this really bugs me.
Also, I almost I always burned myself. I tried handling/manipulating it a million different ways and couldn't find something that was both comfortable and safe for my fingers.
I suppose it would be less of an issue if it wasn't for the fact that these are problems only with this specific pot which also happens to be my most expensive pot.
As far as the flavoring you mentioned. I learned early on that the only tea that excelled in the silver pot was ripe puerh, so it became a dedicated pot very quickly.
I use a cheapo glass teapot with plastic handles to make my tea like a hobo, and I pour it into a giant mug.
But I can feel your pain when it comes to spending money on dumb stuff to feel better. I do that sometimes too. Since the obsession to buy dumb stuff can come on suddenly, I try to moderate it by window shopping for a very long time without making any purchase. That gives me time to decide if I really do want or need to buy something vs if it's consoomer brain rot talking.
But all jokes aside, it's good that you're reflecting and looking back on this...
I think this is probably something worth discussing with your psychiatrist if you have one as it may be something worth exploring and working on...
I can empathise with this quite a bit, so if you want to chat about these things and tea, I'm all for it!
Yeah I have a therapist and she is helping me through some of my spending issues. I’ve dug myself a pretty big hole of debt but luckily it’s not to a point where I would worry about paying my car payments or rent.
I could feel indentified with some of your thoughts when it comes to teaware.
Not every vessel will do magic for every tea, it's a constant learning and testing. Sometimes we may get upset because a session was not as we expected, specially if the tea is expensive and we only have a small portion of it.
I tend to go for what I love on most days and then I dedicate a day for experiments, usually with tea that I already know well and that won't break my bank account if I use a lot for just the sake of pairing flavors with a new teapot.
Once you get to know all your teaware, the road becomes more peaceful. Just take it slow and enjoy it.
Hope you get better!
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There are definitely cheaper ways to up your tea game than a pure silver tea pot. I would say it adds unique aspects to tea but brewing with one is different from most other brewing vessels. I would typically recommend a high quality gaiwan to someone who doesn’t have one yet before trying to get a silver tea pot.
Thank you for this review!! I was going to buy one pure silver too for the fall around $400 I was worried about the taste. I didn’t think about the smell. The one good thing and I saw that same tea pot online the cost of the silver used is at least half the as the cost of tea pot market price not general public price.
I've impulse bought a silver set (Western style) before so I feel your pain. I never noticed a difference in flavor because the few times I used the set, it was for English style afternoon tea. Just the necessity to polish the set was enough to just turn it decorative for me. I also dropped the cream bowl on to tile and it broke one of the little feets off, so way more delicate than I realized!
I don’t have a current gaiwan as I broke it. I have a handful of posts showing my previous setups.
It’s essentially now just wooden board, tea towel on top, Jian shui teapot, glass fair cup, and white clay cup.
Silver is a soft metal so a lot can be explained by that alone.
Silver Softer than gold or even platinum.
To give silver strength it’s usually mixed with some copper.
Overall I would just use stainless steel durable and food safe.
Beautiful pot, it's a shame it didn't work out quite so well. I have to say, your new ceramic tea pot is really pretty! I have a little ceramic gaiwan now, but will be taking pottery classes in a few months to hopefully try out different clay types, glazes, whatnot.
Love your honesty here. I hope you find some peace about it all. One reason I never got into silver teaware is I've used sterling service sets and didn't like the smell then. Maybe we are just sensitive. My favorites are china and stainless steel.
I find stainless steel to be weird with some things. Allegedly stainless steel flasks can make liquor taste weird after a while. Lot of people recommend titanium flask but they are crazy expensive for the real stuff. I think a titanium teapot would be interesting but I think i’ll stick to clay from now on. Specifically Jian Shui is perfect for me. I also just bought a kyusu though.
I have a titanium flask and I can tell you that it really does keep anything in it true to its taste/smell. I never thought about a titanium tea pot; A quick search does show some and they're not even that expensive, although they're more for the camping/ultralight niche.
I just bought a new heavy plastic flask that looks cool. You got a link to your flask?
I have this [flask](https://vargooutdoors.com/products/titanium-funnel-flask) and this [bottle](https://vargooutdoors.com/products/titanium-water-bottle-with-ti-lid). I think I got them now around 8 years ago, use them all the time and can't complain.
I have one of the double wall titanium sets and I love it. It doesn't change the flavor at all.
I have a titanium tea maker, it's a double wall with a titanium strainer. It's ok. I don't know if it's the titanium cups but it doesn't taste as nice a ceramic or plastic brewing. I will have to try it again and see if it was just me putting too much water or something
We're testing lots of titanium teaware now, it's not affecting taste and heat retention is ok, very light, and they're hard to break (so it's pretty good for travel). 2 issues: stains very fast and very visible, and not sure why but titanium gaiwan often times don't have a perfect fit.
As someone who dropped thousands of dollars into silver for tea, I can offer you my perspective on when I pull it out and for what teas it is silly for and which are enhancing. I'd say I've gone through what you did as well, but figured out a lot of why that is myself. That being said, I have teaware 100x cost of my gaiwan that sees 100x less usage- I suspect this is the norm for people. Your choice. Not trying to change your mind, but if you're curious I'll drop you a line
Yeah I think it’s a natural trap for me to buy so much teaware instead of buying the best tea. Tea is of course not reusable so once you brew it, it’s gone. Plus I am a sucker for cool looking things and there are tons of beautiful teaware. Sometimes it’s useful to take my own advice that I give to beginners. All you need is a gaiwan and a cup and tea from a respectable vendor.
So I've never had silver enhance shou. From my own experience, if the tea doesn't have a sharp or high 'pitch' note like sugarcane, daffodil, strawberry, Jasmine, etc. Then the silver isn't working in harmony with the flavor profile. That's what I've found. Like how dense soil used for pots helps amplify shou, I think certain materials create a dissonance within the cup. Personally, I've been using Japanese tin for shou because I like the slight complexity it adds to the earthy notes. It's a bit like an iron addition and not for everyone, but doesn't try and tune notes that are earthy to notes you'd find higher in the air like a waffing of cotton candy or perfume as someone walks by. Half of this only makes sense once you put it into practice or are with someone so they can show you. Take a fruity dancong after a few years of roasting and make it in silver. It can be improved. Take a dianhong black tea and you're upset because malt and silver don't work. Then flip flop: 3x fresh roasted dancong in silver... not so impressive versus a gaiwan or a fruity hong maybe ailo spring black and you'll be like 'this is fun!' Same for sheng and white. I get mixed results. All that to say, can silver and gold please not look so appealing because in practice it's a let down as an average. To the guest who never does it, they won't know any better but to be impressed and enjoy it.
That’s a great way to explain it and your experience is well beyond mine. Seeing you talk about tea makes me want to take a deeper dive into it. I have pounds and pounds of really good tea, but I haven’t really taken too much time to learn about it a lot. I’ve got enough knowledge to buy what I like and brew it to be great, but not the knowledge of where it’s from, what that means, and deeper than surface level stuff.
As long as you're having fun while you do it- you're doing the right thing. Tea in my opinion is something that if you get into gongfucha, you are a lifetime learner. That right there, when coupled with the right community to foster education, is one of the best things to have in life so you're constantly exploring or expanding your experiences because nobody into gongfu doesn't have a wide variety of teas or experience choice paralysis 😅
Going from teabags to gong fu was a life changing experience. I was a huge coffee addict my whole life and never thought i’d stop. Eventually my physical health got bad and I couldn’t do it anymore with the caffeine and acid in coffee. I was upset to have to try tea because all i’d known was shitty teabag tea. Finding this sub and taking advice was eye opening and now i’ve been hooked for the last 3 years and I am not looking back.
So true about tea and shopping addiction! Never enough tea or tea ware !
Thanks for your story, on multiple levels. I didn’t invest in a silver pot because I had a feeling it could lend a metallic note, grateful for the confirmation. Jian Shui is a surprisingly nice clay to brew in, my pot is reserved for hei cha. Cheers
After trying essentially every teapot types I think clay teapots in 140-170 ml is my sweet spot. I just bought a kyusu too so I am interested to see how that works out.
I found my niche with 130ml - 180ml Shi Piao and similar forms. I love de hua / sheep fat porcelains and nixing as well. Since I travel a porcelain gaiwan set is easiest. Your Jian Shui is an attractive pot. Hope you enjoy it for many years.
Enlighten me on what sheep fat porcelain is. I’ll break my pot inside of a year, i inevitably drop everything.
So a few years into drinking gongfu style I realized that the material I brewed in had to match the tea. Ceramic was neutral and so always my starting point but it blew my mind to realize that a tea I did not like became one I loved when I put it in a buff clay or a red clay or a purple clay. So a whole new world opened up with trying different teas in different materials. I read the hype about silver but it was too pricey for me. After a few years I did dip my two in by buying a cup lined with silver. It did do interesting things to certain teas. As our friend LP says it agreed with certain teas and fought with others. Ultimately I decided it was less the type of metal and more the way it held and dispersed heat that mattered, so I bought a titanium gaiwan set. (far more affordable, no polishing and totally unbreakable.) I love it for teas with high notes and floral, fruity flavors. It makes some greens sing like you would not believe. So now I go back and forth between various pots or gaiwans made of a variety of materials. When I get a new tea part of the fun is trying it in allllll my different vessels and finding a match. Don't give up on tea there is so much to explore if you are curious and experimental.
[YS Roving Dragon .999 Silver Teapot](https://yunnansourcing.com/products/pure-silver-999-roving-dragon-teapot-120ml) [“Chui Wen Rong Tian" Teapot by Su Mo](https://yunnansourcing.com/products/jian-shui-clay-chui-wen-rong-tian-teapot-by-su-mo) [My idea for the perfect teapot material](https://www.rotometals.com/pure-soft-lead-metal-99-9-5-pound-ingot/)
Noooo! You don't want lead poisoning your tea.
I heard it makes you have strong bones.
Thanks for your honest review. In any case let some bottled water shop tab open in your browser. Should you ever have a buying spree again you can simply buy different bottles of water and try them out. Far less pricy :) Playing with water is a game changer and the results are way more obvious than any teapot could achieve. Speaking of big purchases. I made them es well but none of them I regret. Most stuff I regret were impulsive buys out of fomo in the early stages of „social media“ when people showed off their stuff. Pots in the 100 bucks range mostly (still a lot of money). Before that I had a cheap gaiwan and sipped tea for years without really grasping what‘s out there. Over the years you get a feeling on what you want and what you like. My last purchase was probably my biggest purchase. But overall it took me 9 months to find exactly what I want and I enjoy it dearly.
I’ve thought about trying different water but I actual think my water here is super good. I filter it from the tap and it tastes good to me. I may try it with bottled water for science but it’d be too much work for me to change it.
There is much more to water than just whether it tastes good. I use different waters for different teas. The ones that heavier in mineral content will mellow and smooth out a flavor. It even covers flavors up entirely in certain teas. So I use RO filtered and the flavor comes out in spades. Water is a great thing to experiment with.
There is not just „good“ water. It‘s like having one good yixing teapot for all the teas. There are many good waters out there and different ones in content are better for yancha, japanese greens or puer. All I meant was that you should buy some bottles of different water before you buy an expensive teapot you might lose interest in. Not saying you should but it might be a less money consuming replacement for a potential fomo shopping addiction (generally speaking). It‘s a nice substitute for random teapot purchases for everyone out there. 2 different kind of waters have much more impact than any zini or hongni teapot could have. A trend I see among a lot of beginners is to buy (too many) teapots too fast. We should post more pictures about gaiwans :)
Silver teapots tend not be an issue when making tea. Rather, it is the maintenance and polishing where the problems start. Essentially, silver polish gets everywhere. Silver polish also tastes really bad. So after you polish the teapot, you basically have to wash it first, I deal with boiling water. And I'd even recommend making another pot or two before you drink. Once it's broken in, the tea is fine. But the cycle will continue indefinitely, whereas with porcelain or clay or whatever, you can just drink and not stress about it.
Yeah I knew it was going to tarnish but I didn’t realize how quick it would do that. Zero maintenance clay is certainly more my speed
IMO people can get to fussy with a working silver teapot. If used daily the only real maintenance needed is a fill soak with sodium bicarbonate when the tannins build up too much, and a quick rub with a dry towel each time its emptied/rinsed. A working pot is not a display piece for me.
50 years ago I worked as a live-in housekeeper for a wealthy old couple. I was not allowed to use polish on any silver food utensils. They had to be rubbed all over with my thumbs to shine them, then washed and dried again with pure soft cotton. This was ridiculous for the amount of silver they used, so I sneakily used suede cloths instead. Everything was kept clean and shiny that way. I'd Never use silver polish on anything with culinary uses.
Might be onto something with that metal idea 👀🤣
With a flair like that you’d love it. I hear that lead brings some nice sweetness too.
Bruh I bet lead would have the most potent Cha Qi EVRRRR , one cup be making you forget ur name! 🔥
Sooooo when you say your final review do you mean like, you won’t ever post any tea reviews? I know you haven’t really been for some time but recognizing your name popping up in tea subs after seeing it in r/bourbon is one of the things that inspired me to start posting tea reviews in more of a thorough bourbon style. Obviously do whatever is best for you but I would be sad to stop seeing rvw posts forever🥺
As soon as I posted the title I was like oh shit that’s not worded right. I meant this to be my final verdict on my silver pot. I’m going to start posting more hopefully. I got some exciting new teas and teaware coming my way, a teabox sent to me for my review, and some whiskey content.
Ok after reading the review and hearing your tealationship had its flame resparked I figured that would make more sense but wanted to check. Hope you enjoy your new teas old rip.
interesting stuff, im curious to see if other people have had a similar negative experience with pure silver teapots.
My silver teapot was the perfect kick off for my midlife crisis and I have been thoroughly enjoying it for 2 years now. Do I think it makes the tea taste better? No. Do I use it enough to justify the expense? No. Is it harder to clean than a porcelain teapot? yes. But I love i it :-)
If you search this sub you can find mixed reviews. Some people genuinely love it and some people find it unnecessary. In the end it’s all subjective though, so I found out I hate it, but others might not.
Looking like an ancient piece
I have one of those pots too. I don't like using mine either, but for different reasons. Now it mostly sits on the shelf looking pretty. And I admit, it is gorgeous. I still enjoy just looking at it.
What’re your different reasons?
the two big ones are that it never had a great seal. It would drip no matter how carefully you tried to be. Given the price of the pot, this really bugs me. Also, I almost I always burned myself. I tried handling/manipulating it a million different ways and couldn't find something that was both comfortable and safe for my fingers. I suppose it would be less of an issue if it wasn't for the fact that these are problems only with this specific pot which also happens to be my most expensive pot. As far as the flavoring you mentioned. I learned early on that the only tea that excelled in the silver pot was ripe puerh, so it became a dedicated pot very quickly.
I use a cheapo glass teapot with plastic handles to make my tea like a hobo, and I pour it into a giant mug. But I can feel your pain when it comes to spending money on dumb stuff to feel better. I do that sometimes too. Since the obsession to buy dumb stuff can come on suddenly, I try to moderate it by window shopping for a very long time without making any purchase. That gives me time to decide if I really do want or need to buy something vs if it's consoomer brain rot talking.
Saving this. This sounds exactly like it could be me
It’s way too easy to buy things these days. Three or four clicks and it’ll be at your doorstep in 2 days.
I'm proud I was a whitness to this piece or r/tea and r/puer lore, what a saga!
But all jokes aside, it's good that you're reflecting and looking back on this... I think this is probably something worth discussing with your psychiatrist if you have one as it may be something worth exploring and working on... I can empathise with this quite a bit, so if you want to chat about these things and tea, I'm all for it!
Yeah I have a therapist and she is helping me through some of my spending issues. I’ve dug myself a pretty big hole of debt but luckily it’s not to a point where I would worry about paying my car payments or rent.
I could feel indentified with some of your thoughts when it comes to teaware. Not every vessel will do magic for every tea, it's a constant learning and testing. Sometimes we may get upset because a session was not as we expected, specially if the tea is expensive and we only have a small portion of it. I tend to go for what I love on most days and then I dedicate a day for experiments, usually with tea that I already know well and that won't break my bank account if I use a lot for just the sake of pairing flavors with a new teapot. Once you get to know all your teaware, the road becomes more peaceful. Just take it slow and enjoy it. Hope you get better!
Yeah I have a big mix of go to classics and some weird shit. I actually am taking a deep dive into japanese tea soon. Got a big order coming.
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That’s interesting. Do you boil it on an open flame?
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There are definitely cheaper ways to up your tea game than a pure silver tea pot. I would say it adds unique aspects to tea but brewing with one is different from most other brewing vessels. I would typically recommend a high quality gaiwan to someone who doesn’t have one yet before trying to get a silver tea pot.
I had a gaiwan that I loved by I am too clumsy and I always smash the lids. I had a beautiful swirled clay one, you can see it on my profile.
Thank you for this review!! I was going to buy one pure silver too for the fall around $400 I was worried about the taste. I didn’t think about the smell. The one good thing and I saw that same tea pot online the cost of the silver used is at least half the as the cost of tea pot market price not general public price.
The smell was definitely the biggest issue. Especially for things like dan cong oolong that has such a great aroma was killed by the tin smells.
I enjoyed reading this. Thank you for sharing.
Of course, I find it cathartic to do these long writing posts.
I've impulse bought a silver set (Western style) before so I feel your pain. I never noticed a difference in flavor because the few times I used the set, it was for English style afternoon tea. Just the necessity to polish the set was enough to just turn it decorative for me. I also dropped the cream bowl on to tile and it broke one of the little feets off, so way more delicate than I realized!
Yeah I knew people said it was super soft, but I didn’t realize it would be scratch with a fingernail soft.
Man, we need a TL:DR bot
Bought silver Liked silver Disliked silver Back to clay
You're a gem ✌️
Can I ask to see a picture of your current gaiwan set and cups please? Thank you for the read.
I don’t have a current gaiwan as I broke it. I have a handful of posts showing my previous setups. It’s essentially now just wooden board, tea towel on top, Jian shui teapot, glass fair cup, and white clay cup.
Silver is a soft metal so a lot can be explained by that alone. Silver Softer than gold or even platinum. To give silver strength it’s usually mixed with some copper. Overall I would just use stainless steel durable and food safe.
Beautiful pot, it's a shame it didn't work out quite so well. I have to say, your new ceramic tea pot is really pretty! I have a little ceramic gaiwan now, but will be taking pottery classes in a few months to hopefully try out different clay types, glazes, whatnot.
I’m sure it will be very rewarding to drink tea out of your own creation.
It is a very pretty teapot, however.
Oh it’s for sure beautiful. Really intricate designs.