Seasoning Your Yixing

The first step is deciding which tea to dedicate your pot too. I believe that you don’t need to be super specific but you should stick to a particular family (i.e. green oolongs, cooked puerh). My own personal pots are dedicated to specific teas that I have a special affinity for: Dangcong Oolong, green rolled oolongs (mostly Taiwanese) and raw puerh. Green and white teas are generally not something you should use in a yixing pot. The clay absorbs too much heat and will negatively affect the taste of your tea.

When I purchased my first yixing, many of the websites I found advised boiling it in a pot of  water with the chosen tea. This struck me as possibly dangerous for a delicate pot. Some versions recommended resting it on a slotted spoon but I still did not feel comfortable. While my pot wasn’t very expensive, I was fond of it and did not want to take any unnecessary risks. I finally found a method that works for me on the website for Seven Cups, a retailer based in Arizona.