What's the most you've ever paid for a tea set?
Tea pots, tea cups…I was just sharing my Reddit tea photo (my first one ever, hooray!) and when I started thinking about how much I paid for it I realized that there must be some maniacs out there who have spent a whole heap on the perfect teaware.
I’ve bought a couple of Yixing tea pots in the $250 range.
The ones I bought of that price range I bought for the Dragons carved into the outside. They were larger pots that I was using at the time. Now that I have switched to smaller tea vessels I rarely use those two or three very expensive pots because you just can’t keep resteeping the tea when the pot is 400ml.
A Jian Shui pot from Crimson Lotus, $100. It’s my first, I’d never heard of Jian Shui until CLT posted the pots to their site last year. I use it for only young sheng (I’ve recently resolved to buy a somewhat cheaper yixing pot for aged sheng). Best impulse decision. Ever. Makes sheng feel and taste so smooth. Easily my most prized teaware.
Wow, cool. I’m curious to learn more about how the shape of a teapot and teacup affect taste – do you know where I can find more (reliable) information on that?
How are these?
Here is a blog post from CLT themselves:
http://crimsonlotustea.com/blogs/puerh/12799169-jian-shui-zi-tao-pottery
A MarshalN blog post. It’s not really about Jian Shui clay, but he and others comment on yixing.
http://www.marshaln.com/2011/03/using-yixing-pots/
And a Reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/tea/comments/2hugo0/my_experiences_brewing_puerh_in_jianshui_clay/
My pot when I was washing it of excess clay:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BABAN7jQNr6/
And here it is in action!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BBK_aeZwNnu/
Thanks! I totally bought it for aesthetic appeal. Now it’s my favorite piece of teaware. If CLT has more of these pots you should go for it!
I have one of the newer egg shaped ones, which I use for aged sheng and I love it. Glen says he’s getting more pots, so I’m eagerly awaiting their arrival!
Oh right! Somehow I missed seeing the photos. I hope they get a Hong Ni or Shui Ping style pot (and also something not $$$…)
$40 on a gaiwan set, it had a weird shape so I had to have it, most my stuff is pretty inexpensive because I have a magical thrift store that occasionally provides antique teaware and yixing pots. Still no gaiwans yet, those I have to pay full price for!
I am… Pretty thrifty. About $45 for a travel-gaiwan-set with a little case. I will probably spend much more on a nice yixing some day. I’ve got a cheap one, which I got almost for free.
Haha. Nice work! Way to limit yourself – sometimes I have a hard time with that :)
Many moons ago I was tricked by a Teavana salesperson into buying a Yixing tea set for $70. It came with a huge 22 oz pot, tiny 2 oz cups and an even smaller infuser basket. Absolutely useless for anything but decor. I’m still mad at myself about it to this day.
In terms of willful purchases, it would have to be a kyusu for $45 – ‘cause Japanese teaware doesn’t come cheap – and recently a pancake-shaped ruyao crackle teapot for $30 from teaware house. Those are the occasional splurges though. I usually seek out cheap teaware from Aliexpress and the like.
Yes the stuff Teavana sells is only good for western brewing. I have a number of large yixing teapots that are too big for gongfu brewing. Some of the large yixing Teavana was selling were actually quite nice if you were going to western brew your tea.
I am guilty of having a decor-only teapot (posted it recently on here and Reddit because it is just so darn pretty) — but lame that someone tricked you into buying. Those darn salespeople…
Do you have a picture of the kyusu? I’d love to see it!
Sadly, that kyusu met its demise not too long ago. Here’s a very similar earthenware kyusu: http://www.hibiki-an.com/product_info.php/products_id/440. Mine was burgundy while this one is green.
And here’s the Yixing set: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/95/83/c2/9583c22f7bf0a5e0a48c690240aecc49.jpg
I actually bought the same yixing set from Teavana but I think I bought the blue colored one. I was using it for western brewing for a while. It is actually a very nice pot for western brewing.
I like the blue one too. They had a “mini” version of the blue yixing which was really nice but at 16 oz, still too large for gongfu.
Teavana doesn’t have anything for gongfu brewing at all. They are totally invested in Western brewing. Very few tea drinkers in this country will brew Asian style so from the viewpoint of the Teavana execs it doesn’t make sense to invest in gongfu brewing teawares.
@LuckyMe — what lovely photos! So sorry that your kyusu died. Oh well. Which set do you tend to use more?
$275 for this bamboo tea tray. As for tea ware, I got a hand painted matcha bowl for $160. Matcha has helped so much with my anxiety I felt for something I use every day and love, was totally worth it.
That’s wonderful! I feel like the visual pleasure of looking at beautiful teaware also helps with anxiety too :)
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