I am relativly new to tea drinking and my newly purchased yixing teapot seems to add more body and earthyness to my pu-erh tea. I seasoned it before use by submerging it in a pot of pu-erh tea for 15 minutes and then rinsing it. I was suprised at the taste difference when compared to tea brewed from my porclen tea pot. I thought it would take much more time to notice a taste difference, or maybe I like the taste of yixing clay, but I do belive I rinsed it well enough.
I had a hard time getting answers to my questions in China Town New York. I went to Ten-Ren I know they had all kinds of yixing pots but getting info about them was like pulling teeth. The pots there looked like yixing pots I have seen on the web and I am almost sure due to the large number of pots they had that some or maybe many of them are yixing but I am by no means fully educated about the properties of yixing. I eventually found a another place that would at least tell me if the teapots are yixing and bought one there.
The tea I am using it Ten-Rens Pu-erh tea can anyone tell me if getting compressed bricks or wheels would be better? Does Ten-Ren have them if so. I get the feeling I have to know what I want, what it's name is, and how it looks when I buy from them.
I know that you have to use a yixing teapot for only one type of tea but does that mean I can use my black pu-erh tea teapot for all black teas or just pu-erh tea? I am planning to get a different teapot for each different type of tea I use but how much lattitude do I have when it comes to the "same type of tea" It would be nice if I could get only three teapots, one for black, one for oolong, and one for green. Is this generally possible or is there too much difference within each catagory of tea.
I want to narrow down the type of teas I'll use most as I wouldn't want to dedicate a teapot to a type of tea I wouldn't use often. Any help would be appreciated thank you.