Maybe my cups are a little too
big or something...the one holds about 5 OZ. Can't really use
chopsticks with it because of the weight

Melinda, there's a disconnect here. Is the 5 oz. a typo? Yixing cups are
usually 1 to 2 oz. I'd think a 5 oz. cup wouldn't get that terribly hot
because of the large surface area.

I could understand the little 1-oz. cups getting pretty hot, and for cups that
small, the yixing tongs are perfect for dealing with the rinsing process.

If your cups are 5 oz., how big must your pot be?

BTW when I'm doing casual just-for-me gungfu, I often use a 7 oz. pot and a
single 6 oz. cup, and do several steeps. If I were having guests, I'd use the
proper practice and small cups.

Joe Kubera

"samarkand" wrote in message
...
Interesting! Chai-inka, Chai-inki, and Chaiinyj stol...Sasha, can you
tell me how to pronounce them?

Cha-in-ka (ch is like ch in Italian chao), emphasis on the second syllable
("in") - Cha'inka.
Cha -in -ki (multiple cha -in-ka)
Chai - nyj stol ("y" here is for russian letter and sound that does not
exist in English, but does exist in Chinese - "e" like Chinese for goose.
You can imitate it by pronouncing long letter "o" and in process move your
lower jaw forward. This time the emphasisi is on teh first syllable -
'Chai-nyj.
Stol is easy - like "Stoli" (Stolichnaja (the capital city) Vodka" without
"i" - comes from the same ancient root - stol = table - the city inside the
principality where the Kniaz (prince) was "sitting" at his "table" - his
headquarters.

Sasha.

5 oz cups? That is a gong fu for the giants!
I use 4 oz yixing teapot and 3/4 oz cups when I do it for on-two people. 6
oz yixing chahu and same cups for 4-6 people.
Second - that "pourng the water out into the sink" does not sound right at
all. Everything is done on the table, there should not be any trips to the
kitchen sink. When I have 2 people I use bamboo tongs to take two cps at a
time (3/4 oz cups) and put them into hot water and take them out. When I
serve 4 - i use two pair of bamboo tongs and do it with 4 cups at the same
time. In and out - no sink, no hassle. But certainly one cannot do that with
5 oz mugs.

Sasha.

"Melinda" wrote in message
om...
My steps to gung fu have been (and I make no claim to purity here, I
am still putting things together from various instruction webpages
I've read and messages from various tea lists):

1-heat the water, set out the equipment (yixing pot, fair cup,
drinking and/or smelling cup)

2-pour boiling water into and over the pot and the cups (and yes I had
been pouring it over the handle, I was more careful last night and the
handle was better. Cups were still hot, no way to get around that)

3-let sit for a few seconds to heat up the teawares, then pour out
boiling water from everything (here's the first and worst place
usually that I get my fingers burned)

4-put leaves in teapot, put lid on, let sit for around 10-15 seconds.
Open lid, smell, enjoy. repeat as liked a few times (can reheat pot by
pouring a little water over the outside)

5-pour a little water into leaves or the whole amount of water onto
leaves. I have not been rinsing my leaves this batch as it seems like
it might waste flavor and all I have is the one sample right now. I do
rinse puer if I am brewing that though. Put on lid. Steep tea, pour a
little water over the outside. I have heard of people filling the
steeping water til it overflows the outside of the pot a little, I
would do that if this oolong weren't in such short supply for me.

6-Steep for however long your first steep in going to be. Pour out
(decant). This Yixing pot I'm using now (my first) has a tiny little
hole in it's spout, pours rather slowly. I'll remember that for the
next one I get.

7-Drink how you're going to, repeat steeps as desired, etc.

The worst part of burning fingers, as I said, is when I'm dealing with
the boiling water when rinsing the pot and the cups especially, when
pouring out the water into the "sink". Maybe my cups are a little too
big or something...the one holds about 5 OZ. Can't really use
chopsticks with it because of the weight. (As a secondary comment, I'm
going to be more careful about the second yixing I buy...the handle on
this one is really rather delicate when I've got the pot filled with
water. I'm not afraid it will break, it just feels too small for the
weight of the pot).

The towel suggestion might be the best at this point. My husband
recommended rubber kitchen gloves. Both kind of take away from the
artistry of it so I'll have to maybe adjust my times or something, not
sure yet. Any more comments? Thanks for the advice so far
though...I've never seen anyone actually do this so I'm learning by
reading and by doing as it were. Thanks again

Melinda

On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 22:50:34 GMT, Alex Chaihorsky wrote:

Second - that "pourng the water out into the sink" does not sound right at
all. Everything is done on the table, there should not be any trips to the
kitchen sink.

Given the fact that Melinda put the word sink in quotes, I believe she
was referring to the bowl into which the water is dumped, not to the
plumbing fixture.

Not all sinks have drains.

--
Derek

"I've already lived 20 years longer than my life expectancy when I was
born. That is a source of annoyance to some people." -- Ronald Reagan

Hi Joe,

No, no typo...hmm, I didn't realize my pot was so much larger than
what others seem to use. The website I bought it from says it holds
"over 10 ounces" but I haven't actually measured it. So I'm guessing
it's around 10-11 ounces. I use it when I'm pouring for myself or
myself and my husband. I suppose we're really guzzling down the tea
then.. Actually, I can't remember seeing pots that are much smaller
than 10 ounces on this particular site, and many that are much larger
(which I know is not the direction I want to go if I want to do gong
fu in the way I've learned). I will have to look though to be sure.
When looking at pots sizes like 10 ounces don't jump out at me but
sizes like 24 ounces (actually anything bigger than about 12) does
make me notice.


Also, a comment on the posts that are not yet on Google groups but
which I can read from my newsreader...you are quite right Derek, I was
using "sink" in a more gong fu sense. I do not run back and forth to
the kitchen sink, lol. Presently I am using a regular baking pan (I am
guessing it's around 11 by 17 or some such, with a depth of around 3
inches) for my yiking sink because it's what I have to hand and it's
free which is a consideration at the moment.


Melinda


(Joseph Kubera) wrote in message ...
Maybe my cups are a little too
big or something...the one holds about 5 OZ. Can't really use
chopsticks with it because of the weight

Melinda, there's a disconnect here. Is the 5 oz. a typo? Yixing cups are
usually 1 to 2 oz. I'd think a 5 oz. cup wouldn't get that terribly hot
because of the large surface area.

I could understand the little 1-oz. cups getting pretty hot, and for cups that
small, the yixing tongs are perfect for dealing with the rinsing process.

If your cups are 5 oz., how big must your pot be?

BTW when I'm doing casual just-for-me gungfu, I often use a 7 oz. pot and a
single 6 oz. cup, and do several steeps. If I were having guests, I'd use the
proper practice and small cups.

Joe Kubera

samarkand wrote:
I always wonder how can the handle of the pot be hot

Some of my slip-cast Yixing-type pots have hollow handles that communicate
with the body volume. Thin clay conducts heat very quickly. So when filled
with hot water, the handles can be too hot to tough comfortably.

-DM

"Melinda" wrote in message

OK, I have just had it...I have never heard anyone ask this question
before but it comes up for me every time I try to do gung fu with my
yixing pot. The thing gets so hot

Maybe, it's not a yixing pot, and not even a traditional unglazed clay pot
(like those from Taiwan).
I have a number of pots, and the difference between the yixing and others is
the yixing don't get so hot. I have a glass and a glazed ceramic mini-pots,
they definitely stay much hotter when you try to gong-fu them. But not to
the point of getting hurt if I'm careful.

(from pouring the hot water over it,
in it, steeping, etc.) as well as the cups getting hot...I have a very
difficult time doing this without some hurt fingers.

You are not supposed to touch the pot's body (for any pot), just the handle
and in certain cases the lid-button that is an added piece especially
designed to stay "less hot". The cups have also a thinner part at the
extremity, that part also stays cooler so you can catch them from there and
also avoid burning your lips.
Also, be careful. You shouldn't touch the pot imediatly after pouring water
on top of it but waiting till the handle and lid are slightly cooled.
Of course, there are pots/cups better designed than others, and sensibility
to heat is a very
individual matter. Try to wear cotton gloves (driving gloves), they don't
prevent the movement of fingers, don't smell and you feel the heat less for
quick exposure. I use some to return the cookies inside the oven, etc.

This is for
oolong btw so the water needs to be hot, I know.

I ignore that. What does "hot" mean ? How hot ? I never use water hotter
than 90 degrees.

gung fu-ing the last of my Bai Hao.

It's a Taiwan tea. There, I've seen them doing like me : bringing the kettle
from another room. That makes the water at 90 deg. C. for rinsing, a little
less for brewing.
IMHO, the reason of gong-fu-ing is not reaching hot temp. , but maintening a
"hot enough" temp. constant for a while.

Kuri

"Derek" wrote in message

In the first place, and in hindsight, it's not "most" of the teapots.
At best, it might be a few. And, I'm not sure at this point if they're
yixing or not. It's quit likely that they're Japanese.

It's unlikely. There are no Japanese yixing pots. But the big yixing pots
with iron handles and frame exist, in China and Chinese import stores. They
are not designed for gong-fu. The pots designed for gong-fu are a very very
small minority of the pots on sale in Asia. The others are not "a few". It's
logical there are more large size pots, as the Chinese rarely use pots (they
brew daily tea in glasses or worse) and when they get the pot out of the
cupboard, it's for an occasion, and they need to serve many guests.

Kuri

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:02:04 +0900, cc wrote:

"Derek" wrote in message

In the first place, and in hindsight, it's not "most" of the teapots.
At best, it might be a few. And, I'm not sure at this point if they're
yixing or not. It's quit likely that they're Japanese.

It's unlikely. There are no Japanese yixing pots. But the big yixing pots
with iron handles and frame exist, in China and Chinese import stores. They
are not designed for gong-fu. The pots designed for gong-fu are a very very
small minority of the pots on sale in Asia. The others are not "a few". It's
logical there are more large size pots, as the Chinese rarely use pots (they
brew daily tea in glasses or worse) and when they get the pot out of the
cupboard, it's for an occasion, and they need to serve many guests.

Kuri

I didn't mean to suggest that they were Japanese yixing pots. I meant
that the pots I remember seeing were likely Japanese, and not yixing
after all.

--
Derek

"Ever wonder why people are so determined to reach for white picket
fences, supposed normalcy, a nuclear family? Well, try growing up
without one." -- Chuck Eddy

"Derek" wrote in message

I didn't mean to suggest that they were Japanese yixing pots. I meant
that the pots I remember seeing were likely Japanese, and not yixing
after all.

Sorry, I had read quickly.

Kuri

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 02:40:57 +0900, cc wrote:

"Derek" wrote in message

I didn't mean to suggest that they were Japanese yixing pots. I meant
that the pots I remember seeing were likely Japanese, and not yixing
after all.

Sorry, I had read quickly.

Kuri

That's quite all right. I've done that myself. I'm just clarifying
what I was saying since it wasn't clear given the way I wrote it.

You know how much effort it takes to be misunderstood on usenet, don't
you?
--
Derek

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 02:40:57 +0900, cc wrote:

"Derek" wrote in message

I didn't mean to suggest that they were Japanese yixing pots. I meant
that the pots I remember seeing were likely Japanese, and not yixing
after all.

Sorry, I had read quickly.

Kuri

That's quite all right. I've done that myself. I'm just clarifying
what I was saying since it wasn't clear given the way I wrote it.

You know how much effort it takes to be misunderstood on usenet, don't
you?
--
Derek