New Yellow Zisha Guywan

Blues --

This is strange. I've never before seen a zisha gaiwan whose interior wasn't glazed. But there it is on the website. It's strange because gaiwans are usually lower-heat vessels, glazed porcelain type. Since zisha clay retains heat, your fingers may get uncomfortably hot trying to hold and pour out of this thing.

You didn't say if your drained the hot water between boilings. If not, maybe that could leave sandy particles redeposited in the pot? Other than that, try using a medium stiff brush or new Scotchbrite to remove loose particles. (Actually saw that recommended on some yixing site.)

If you keep getting a clay taste in your tea, sorry -- you may have bought yourself a fancy flowerpot. Maybe complain to the seller and see how they offer to resolve it.

Joe

well, firstly, i would question your choice of water. Distilled means that it has had basically all of the minerals removed from it, and it can cause the tea to lose nearly all taste or taste acidic (Se) or bad. you need a good spring water so the minerals in the water can bring out the full flavor of the tea. And, you let the pu'er sit in the water for an hour or you just let the water boil for an hour? For you pu'er teas, it's usually good to brew for a short period of time for each steeping. another variable is the quality of the pu'er tea...how old is it, what's the leaf quality, etc? the older the better.

if the gaiwan is made of the yixing/zisha material, you must begin to raise it properly as if it were a pot. many chinese that raise their pots play with them each day for at least 30 minutes; rubbing them and brewing tea with them. you can just steep tea in it a few times and that's good enough..i've also heard of people boiling their pots/gaiwan for a few minutes.

good luck.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

I just used the distilled water and the long soak with tea in the water to cure the gaiwan. I use spring water to brew the tea, and as I said previously, was only steeping for 10-30 seconds. The tea I was using was the "nearly 10 year old" Aged Green Puerh Tuo Cha from ITC. I don't have a lot of experience with Puerh, but this is the second tuo cha of this tea I've had and I like it. Seems fairly smooth and has that wonderful sweet aftertaste. My only other puerh experiences were with some young and aged greens from Teaspring.com. I enjoyed them also. The aged green puerh from Teaspring was probably on par with this one, but this one is a little cheaper and gets here fast since ITC are just up the coast. I have never had a cooked/black/whatever puerh that I enjoyed. They seem to give me a headache and the flavor has been so so. But then again I've only had a couple of samples from Upton and Teaspring.

I gave the gaiwan/guywan another boil with some spent leaves and let it soak overnight. Today it seems fine, no off flavor, so I'm happy. As I said it was a gift, so this saves me from having to tell my wife her thoughtful gift makes bad tea. I mostly drink the green puerh during the day while I'm working at the computer. At four ounces I have to brew tea for every couple of sips, but it gives my eyes a break from the computer screen.

Thanks for your response,

Blues