If you are going to make a teapot, it is kind of important that you understand something about its use.  The more you learn, the more depth there can be to your design.  This page has some basic information.  There are some other wonderful local resources for learning about tea and tea making.

  • The Tea Grotto has regular tea tastings on Saturdays from 3-5 pm.  Go there and taste a few teas, learn about the differences in teas and how they are brewed, find out what is important in brewing tea.  We will also be setting up at least one special tasting party for potters at The Tea Grotto.  
  • The city and county library have a number of books on tea, its history, and brewing.  Some recommendations include:
    • The New Tea Book by Sara Perry.
    • The Story of Tea by Mary Lou Heiss.
Tea Basics:

Tea is all made from one plant species (Camellia sinensis).  There are five basic types of tea.  They differ from each other mainly in the processing of the buds and leaves of the plant.  For all tea, only the top bud and one or two leaves is picked  (this is called a flush).
  • White Tea: the flush is picked, allowed to wilt and then dried.  This minimal processing makes for a clean light flavor.
  • Green Tea: the flush is heated (steamed for Japanese green, panned for Chinese green), rolled, and dried.  Since the leaf is not oxidized or wilted, it retains a grassy or vegetal flavor.
  • Oolong is wilted, bruised, allowed to partially oxidize, rolled, dried, and may be partly roasted.  It is somewhat between Green and Black tea in taste.  
  • Black Tea is wilted, bruised, allowed to fully oxidize, rolled and dried.  The complete oxidation allows the tea to retain its flavor for several years.  
  • Post-fermented tea (e.g., Pu-ehr) is a green tea that has been fermented.  The fermenting removes the bitter tastes from the tea.
 Differences in the processing, the varietals of the plant species, and growing conditions will also make a difference between the types and between specific teas.

In brewing tea, there are three main parameters:
  • water temperature:  The lighter teas require a lower water temperature for brewing.  White tea: 150-160 F, Green: 170-180 F, Oolong 180-190 F, Black 210 F, Pu-ehr 200-210 F.
  • steeping time:  The lighter teas require a shorter brewing time.  White and green steep for 1-2 minutes, Oolong and black for 2-3 minutes.  These are typical times for a pot of tea with about 1 teaspoon of tea leaves per cup of water. 
  • number of infusions:  You can re-brew the same leaves 2 or 3 times.  Oolong and green can be re-brewed 4-6 times.
This leads to two design ideas:
  • Separation:  There has to be a fairly quick way to end the steeping, i.e, to separate the leaves from the tea.  One design is to have a strainer in the teapot that can easily remove the tea leaves from the pot.  An alternate is to pour off all the brewed tea and leave the tea leaves behind.
  • Retention:  The tea leaves have to be retained so that they can be used for additional steepings.  
There is a lot of tea brewing information on the internet.  Here is a short annotated list of sites:
  • www.teance.com:  This is a San Fransisco tea house.  There is a small section of articles about tea, brewing, and teaware in the Tea Scoop section.  There is also a set of articles by their tea buyer, including one on The Importance of Teawares.
  • gonfu tea brewing:  This is the Chinese tea ceremony.  It is a bit different than brewing up a pot of tea.  Here is a set of videos on ehow or YouTube that introduce the gaiwan and Yixing teawares.  
  • Japanese tea ceremony:  The Japanese tea is a very different type of tea.  Here is a YouTube video on an informal tea ceremony. 
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