"Will Yardley" wrote in message
...
On 2007-03-16, Melinda wrote:

I am wondering about the best shape of yixing to use for greener
oolongs-a
li shans etc. I love the lemon peel top notes of the scent of those and I
was thinking about the Reidel wine glasses that are designed to enhance a
particular type of wine's fragrance.

One difference there is that you're not *drinking* out of the teapot
(right?).


No I'm not drinking out of the pot, LMAO! I can see that though...

Does anyone have an opinion as to which is teh best (in their
experience)? For instance, is there anyone here that has a separate
pot for darker oolongs and one for greener ones or one pot for da hong
pao and one for a li shan? I am thinking that perhaps the greener ones
need to be a lower temp, so some type of yixing that might cool off
quicker? My main mental image is regular round bellied yixing versus a
tall one versus a flat one (the coin type) with the big mouth.

I think a lot of people dedicate separate pots for different types of
teas. I don't have a ton of experience with this, but for tightly rolled
greener oolongs, I think a tall-round or pear shaped pot is the best.
For really light ones, zhu ni may be a better clay choice, at least
according to people I've talked to (supposedly does less rounding out /
mellowing of the flavor, letting the "high notes" shine through). Of
course you can also use ceramic or silver.

I have like 3 small pear pots (all zhu ni or at least fake zhu ni)
(around 110-125 ml) that I use for light and medium rolled oolongs.

The nicest one is probably this 70s one from Guang of Hou De Asian Art:
http://veggiechinese.net/JinXiXiaoZhuNi.jpg

You might also want to take a look at this thread:
http://community.livejournal.com/puerh_tea/87832.html

If you're looking for something that will cool off quicker, you could
look into thin walled teapots, but they are expensive and seem very easy
to break.
I played with the one that Stéphene sells:
http://teamasters.blogspot.com/2006/...ai-teapot.html
at Danica's, and it's very nice...

Everyone's "formula" for figuring out what to use with what is
different, and people have varying degrees of obsessiveness about
dedicating a specific pot to a specific type of tea. I think the
consensus is to try things out and see what works for you.

w


I would say the same except that buying decent yixing is expensive for me so
I can't keep trying pots to experiment. The clay type is something I hadn't
thought as much of, thanks for your input!!

Melinda