Monday, March 17, 2008

Yixing Zisha Shi Piao Hu (2)

117 grams for 12 cl volume.

This Shi Piao Hu is made of a darker zisha clay than this one. They are both from the same maker, but this darker one was made earlier, 7 years ago. Another difference is that the filter is flat (7 holes). The firing is excellent with a very high pitched sound. So, this zisha clay is rather hard and I had very good results with my old roasted Baozhong. But (unlike the previous Shi Piao) it will work well even with unroasted Baozhong, most Wuyi Oolongs and puerhs.

Update: I just made some of my spring 2007 'lily flower' Baozhong in this teapot. I can confirm that this Shi Piao also yields fragrant results with light Baozhong.

14 comments:

toki said...

Very Nice Pot, Stéphane.
Shi Piao style pot has the best pouring stream. Something to do with the air to water ratio/flow?
One of the most famous pot which master Gu Jing Zho made was a SP. - Toki

TeaMasters said...

Thanks Toki. I'm glad you like it.

The pouring stream is nice, indeed. I'm not sure why. One of the characteristics of a Shi Piao is its lid. There is no round and pierced ball on top. The hole is below the little handle. That way, it is always open and there is no way to stop the flow by closing it with your finger. That hole also appears bigger.

On my picture, I have positioned the lid in line with the body. However, I feel that this doesn't give me the possibility to slightly open the lid to let in more air (to make a highly roasted Oolong more smooth, for instance). Therefore, for actual use, I recommend to turn the lid by 90 degrees.

Anonymous said...

what is Shi Piao style exactly ?

Anonymous said...

stephane, please can you tell me, i may be off topic but i need to know, can i use one teapot for different blends of , let's say, oolong tea? or do i have to use a teapot for each blend? i just bought four blends of oolong, do i have to buy four teapots now??? thanks for taking the time in answering my questions. theo.

Anonymous said...

I'm kind of non-believer that one pot should be for one tea or even one kind of tea. It's kind of a trick run by pot vendors to drive the consument buying more pots. But on the other hand, collecting pot might lead to addictive habit!
So far, I did found out that yixing pot improves the quality of the brew in terms of smell and taste of the tea, especially non-green tea. Some pots may 'store' the smell of one particular tea, but it depends also on how you 'raise' your pot and material of the pot.
I use zhuni (less porous) for brewing oolong and if I always flush the used pot with hot water at the end of tea session, even after 2.5 months I don't smell significant trace of tea in the pot. However I do culture another pot using the trick suggested by Bill of ancientteahorseroad and find a significant impact to my pot where the smell of tea is really stored in the pot.
In general, if you want to use one pot for different teas, flush your pots (inside) with boiling water before and after the tea session. After 2 flushes, I believe no trace of tea rather than smell of hot rock might appear.

Anonymous said...

what is the trick suggested by Bill from ancienteahorseroad ?

TeaMasters said...

Theo,
I agree with Tan. 1 teapot is enough. Just rinse it well with boling water between different teas.

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to say that I really enjoy this tea blog. I can really tell that the writing is from true "tea masters".

Anonymous said...

yes, a great blog that is very intimidating to the newcomer amongst us. it is sometimes very mind boggling how just by the way you pour the water into the pot, you can change the taste of the tea. wow.

but yeah, keep this up, great blog and great pics also.

Anonymous said...

I've been using this pot for the first time today and have to say it is wonderful for the baozhong I'm using it on. I usually brew baozhongs in a gaiwan, but now have a good alternative if I want to round out their flavor a bit and bring out the body.

One comment, the lid does get a bit hot, but once you get used to delicately placing you finger at the top of the little handle on the lid it's not a problem. Nice pour, beautiful pot in person. I love it's creamy chocolate feel.

Norbert said...

Je viens de recevoir cette théière. En plus d'être esthétique, elle possède un grain très agréable au toucher. Je l'ai essayée aujourd'hui avec un pu er cru et j'ai trouvé qu'elle révélait plus d'arômes que dans mon autre théière en zisha.

Anonymous said...

mr. erler,

i read somewhere that you may bring back that gorgeous xi shi tea pot again for sale, since there have been a lot of requests for this pot, am i correct??? if so, when can we expect you to have them for sale again??

i need two of them!!! please.

TeaMasters said...

Thanks for the feedbacks of all who have tested this teapot.

Merci Norbert pour ton test comparatif. Je trouve aussi que cette glaise Yixing est de bonne qualité.

Concerning the zhuni Xishi teapots, I don't know when they'll be available again. Maybe in a few months or longer. Anyway, as soon as they are available, I will post about them on the blog.

Penny Westhorp said...

This is off track but I would appreciate help: 5 years ago in a art gallery/store in Broome Australia I saw what I think was a Yixing teapot: small, square, red clay colour, not glazed, with a unique completely pierced lattice design, so the water/tea would lie inside the hollow borders of the lattice but you could see right through the teapot. I fell in love with it, but couldn't afford it at the time. Now I would love to find one similar again. Can you or any of your readers help? Many thanks, Penny