July 27, 2018
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Recently we got this interesting question:
"Do you think that using a single Yixing teapot for both Dian Hong and Jin Jun Mei is acceptable or ought be avoided?"
As you may expect there's no straight answer to this.
In a perfect world, we do want to dedicate a Yixing teapot per black tea style (Dian Hong, Jin Jun Mei), instead of brewing all black teas in one Yixing teapot. However, there are a few constrains:
- Budget: You may not have the budget to get a good Yixing teapot for every tea you like. If you've budget constrains, you better just get one good Yixing teapot and brew all your black teas, instead of getting two cheaper ones that don't work as intended.
- How to Categorize: Even if you do plan to get a Yixing for every tea, it's still hard to determine which teapot you should use. For Jin Jun Mei and Dian Hong black tea, the differences are pretty obvious, but what about for example Dancong oolongs and Wuyi oolongs? Some will simply get two teapots (one for Dancong and one for Wuyi oolongs). But then sometimes, dividing by region may not be the best choice. Both Dancong and Wuyi oolongs have for similar styles such as Mi Xiang (honey aroma) or Shui Xian (watersprite). It would make more sense to group the styles per teapot instead of grouping per region.
- Frequency of Use: If you do want to go to the extreme, there's one thing you should at last consider. Let's say you regularly drink 10 different types of teas, and you want to get 10 teapots. You've to think about whether you'll end up using them frequently enough. An Yixing teapot needs time to be raised. For that you need to use it frequent enough, so that it can absorb enough tea aroma. In this way, the surface will become shinier and smoother, and it will slowly improve the taste of your tea. So if you want to dedicate a teapot for a particular tea, which you consume 10 times a year, that's not gonna help. In this case, you rather group the teas per type, so you can use the same Yixing teapot more often.
In conclusion, we haven't answered the above question. But we hope the above considerations will help you decide!