Seasoning my yixing

I didn't season mine.. preferred to let it do it itself. I noticed that the pu had infused itself deep into the pot within a week. You remembered to season with distilled water, right?

Er...no-one ever mentioned distilled water to me. So no. What's the difference?

Melinda

It sounds like you've done it right to me... i've seasoned many a yixing, and have done it exactly like you - never with distilled water.

depending on the particular pot, it can take some time to develop patina. i don't know about rubbing spent leaves on it, but i do often let the infused leaves stay in the pot overnight, after gongfu. good luck......p*

Thanks pilo..I wonder if Falkey wasn't pulling my leg. :D I would have picked up on it had it been a little more exagerated.."You did remember to throw salt in the water, right?"

I smelled the inside of the pots yesterday afternoon (they had been rinsed, and dried) and I can't tell if I am smelling a faint smell of puer or if it's just my imagination. Either way, they seem to be fine so far.

Melinda

Actually, there's an interesting point here. So-called "seasoning" is primarily the result, I imagine, tea oils and other marginally water-soluble components (hemicelluloses and tannins?) depositing on and within the pores of the clay body. I'm guessing that some of this happens due to cooling of saturated solutions, some to precipitation of materials (tannins and caffeine, perhaps) that react or associate, and some from real-time oxidation or cross-linking of polyphenols rendering them insoluble. The deposit probably further oxidizes and/or cross-links over time, rendering it more permanent. (Though warm bleach will remove any such, in my experience.)

Anyway, the first step is presumably deposition of organic "stuff" from solution and/or suspension. This process will be enhanced by adding salt to tea in the pot; this will reduce the solubility of many components. The process is called "salting out" and is widely used in many industries, including some ancient dyeing practices.

The salt in turn will wash out easily. So if you're trying to accelerate the seasoning of a new pot by brewing throwaway tea anyway, adding salt might actually make a big difference.

-DM

Wow!! That's fascinating Dog Ma. As a guess , how much salt would you say was needed...is this a matter of supersaturating the solution so that the tea falls out of solution or would a little bit of salt suffice? ANd if we're talking supersaturation, then starting with warm or hot water, dissolving the salt and steeping the tea, and then letting it cool would be necessary, yes?

Thanks for telling me that, it really is very interesting.

Melinda

I'm guessing, having made all this up in the first place, that a very small amount of salt will work. Basically, salt works by making the water less hospitable to organic materials. The organics are competing for small, virtual "holes" in the water that salt fills much better. Everyone knows that oil and water don't mix. Less well known is the asymmetry in this relationship: oil molecules are about as happy in water as "at home" in more oil, but water doesn't like to make room for them.

So even a small pinch of salt in a 100ml pot could drive out a significant amount of oily material. An easy test: brew tea, pour hot into two clear containers. add a pinch of salt to one, and let them cool. The salty one should get cloudy much sooner, as organics supersaturate at a higher temperature. If there's no difference, (a) I'm wrong, (b) make a stronger brew for the seasoning, or (c) - other. (Hey - in reality-based science, there's always room for "other.")

I'll try it myself and report back, though perhaps not for a while.

-DM

Actually no I wasn't being facetious. Sometimes when you season with water with lots of minerals in it, it will leave a white powder on the pot that's very difficult to get rid of. I've always heard it's best to use distilled to avoid this potential problem.

Falky Foo on seasoning YiXing pots...]

Hi,

I put mine through the most cursory of seasonings, a bit of a boil and wash, and sometimes a bit of a soak in the upcoming tea for that pot, but usually I don't do that last. I agree with Falky Foo's contention. Fancy seasoning merely quickens a process that happens naturally over time, and I'm not convinced it does that much in that direction either.

Michael

If you want to determine the amount of seasoning switch to stainless steel or glass. In my area you will see residue after a few pots. In any case you'll be surprised at how fast pots season themselves. In my case I drink enough different teas I switched to glass because it is easy to clean and I enjoy watching the infusions. I had some guests over the weekend and brewed some different teas. I got more comments on the color and type of infusions than the taste. I used my modified one liter tea press which gives a blast of aroma when you pop the top. All the condensation collects in the filter so you have to be careful and not let drip on the guest. It was fun being the center of attention just for a little while.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:

I don' t understand why it would hurt to season a yixing with a mild, unscented, green tea. Even if you were eventually intended to use it for puer. It seems like the pu would overcome the milder green tea...

But I've never used yixing so I don't know what I'm talking about.