Azure Ruyao Pancake Teapot 145ml

Weather in the Midwest is weird, this should be the subtitle of my blog, ‘tea, geekery, and weather in the Midwest is weird.’ Yesterday was awesome, really epic thunderstorm and warm weather, had my windows open all day, and then when night fell I went to sleep with my windows open because it was still fairly warm. My sleep was awful, I kept feeling more and more cold, but my half asleep brain registered it as not enough blankets rather than anything else. At 8 AM I woke up for some reason and realized that no, the reason I was cold was because the temperature had dropped to freezing and it was snowing. I promptly closed the windows and dove back to the blanket pile and slept til the early afternoon. Sadly the damage was done, I felt kinda garbage when I woke up, turns out sleeping in frigid air is not healthy, note to self check the prospected temperature before bed!

Long time passing since I last looked at one of the pieces of teaware in my far to large for its own good collection, so today I am looking at Teaware.house’s Azure Ruyao Pancake Teapot a delightfully teal colored 145ml teapot with a large webwork of crackles just waiting for a good staining. First off the pros of this pot, it is pretty!! I love the coloring, so very much, it matches my hair which pleases me. The shape also pleases me, the squashed appearance is like someone took a Xishi pot and stepped on it, and there is something immensely entertaining about teapots that look squashed.

It is thick-walled so it holds the heat well and the built in strainer keeps out the leaves. Well mostly, the holes are a bit on the large side so it lets out the smaller leaves and particles, so either you need a strainer or need to just eat the leaves like I tend to. Free fiber! With it being rounded and wide of mouth it means it is a lot easier to clean out than some of my other pots, wide mouth pots are sooooo easy to clean, they are a boon to all teaware hoarders.

My only complaints with this pot is the size and the lid. Ok size, it is a perfectly excellent size for my large leaf oolongs and fluffy white, though I never use it for reds and shou, meaning it is barely showing the staining. This is really not a complaint on the side of the teapot, more on me for not chugging the darker teas as often as I should with this pot, though the slow staining that is developing is lovely and I cannot wait to really see the dark wide channels splitting this pot like a river delta. The legit complaint is it is a bit of a dribbler, but only when the pot is totally full. So at first pour it dribbles and then by the time it is half empty no dribbling, this is not a problem really if pouring on a tea tray or over a large cha hai (I tend to just tip mine in and balance the lid knob on the spot) but I tend to make a bit of a mess with this pot once in a awhile. Other than the dribbling this pot is excellent, I am quite pleased with it.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/03/teawarehouse-azure-ruyao-pancake-teapot.html