Looking for a brazier/kettle (furo gama)

First off: be VERY careful about using a charcoal stove inside. I've talked to people who say you should not do it at all. If you do it, please make sure you have adequate ventilation.

If you mean the Chinese earthenware or metal cylindrical stoves sometimes used in Chaozhou style gong fu, I think the Chinese name would usually be something like lu2 tan4 (charcoal stove) or ni2 lu2 (clay stove). I can't easily put in 8 bit characters here, so look them up on nciku.com if you want to know the actual characters. They're basically a smaller version of traditional Chinese cooking stoves.

Most of the ones I know of are intended to use with very small, side-handled kettles.

See also

if you're interested in these specifically. Some of these are available pretty cheaply in China (like $5-10 US, maybe cheaper), but the quality seems to vary widely, and it's not easy to order them directly at any rate.

Wing Hop Fung (in LA) carries some (cheap-ish) stoves that may or may not work - they are the right shape and have the right sort of grate, but I believe it's the wrong type of clay, and I believe I've heard of one cracking from using it with charcoal.

Imen of Tea Obsession sometimes carries the clay stoves, but they're quite expensive (about $175 - $200 for the set), and are only available sometimes.

Other than vendors who sell antique braziers for Japanese tea ceremonies, those are the main two places in the west I know of that sell tea-specific charcoal stoves (though you could use a camping stove of some sort).

You might be able to get away with using one of the tiny square charcoal stoves used for Japanese / Korean table-top grilling. The charcoal used for this is also appropriate. The main thing that's tricky is finding one that fits whatever kettle you're planning on using.

Lin's in Taiwan (their site hasn't been reachable recently) sells some larger kettle / stove combinations, but I'm not 100% sure which (if any) of them are suitable for using with charcoal rather than a candle or alcohol burner.

There are a few people who might be able to assist you in ordering such a set from China or Taiwan. A few are mentioned in the threads above. Keep in mind that the ones suitable for using charcoal with tend to be fairly fragile, and they're also heavy... this means that shipping one will be expensive and risky.

Another list I am on has had a lot of in depth discussion on water lately. One of the parameters being debated is how fast the water is heated. Is this the draw of the Brazier style rigs and olive charcoal? To heat the water faster? And what effect does that have on the ultimate brew?

Mike

I joined this thread a bit late, but I've seen what I think is exactly the sort of traditional stone tea brazier and kettle that you might be looking for. Best Tea House Co, based in Hong Kong but with stores in Canada and Japan, sells some very hard to find teaware, and the last time I was in their Vancouver B.C. store stone braziers of this type caught my eye. At the time I remember thinking that perhaps it would be useful in trying T'ang dynasty style brewing per Lu Yu, but they didn't have a wheel-style tea grinder in stock.

I couldn't find a working online store front, sorry to say, but if you find yourself in the Vancouver or Hong Kong sometime...

Hey no problem, better late than never. Chou Zhou is actually more the origin as far as I know, but I'm sure stone braziers and the like existed before. Dan Congs especially tend to be the tea brewed this way. I've seen the Taoist wheel grinders in use and it is interesting, I've always looked for one as a cool decoration. I'd love to find myself in either HK or Vancouver but I doubt I will see either this year... especially HK. I'll see if I can find a phone number, I'll let my fingers do the walking, thanks for the heads up though.

- Dominic

I could be wrong, but I think the style of brazier used in Japanese (and old Chinese) tea ceremony way predates the Chaozhou stoves, probably by at least 800-1000 years.

Yes, I just meant the ones I was talking about in this thread... I'm sure fire and kettle predates them all and then the concentration of heat and specialized use slowly evolved into the chimney/brazier and tea kettle. The earthenware/iron/metal split is the one I'd love to learn more about. Because long after metal was common earthenware continued on. I find that interesting because I have an aversion to metal in my brewing, but I would consider an iron kettle if only it wouldn't be rust in days.

- Dominic