Is it possible to "reset" a Yixing's flavor?

Just curious :)

7 Replies
momo said

Yes. Just search for it on Google and there are instructions on how to accomplish that.

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darby select said

Yes, David at Verdant Tea has instructions on it on his website.

I wasn’t able to find the article. Is there a link?

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JC said

Yes. It can be done. But just keep in mind what ‘flavor’ tea you were using vs the one you want to use currently and time you used it. If it hasn’t been long it can be easily done by just putting it on boiled (not boiling) water for 10-15 minutes and letting it dry and repeating the process as needed.

Hope this helps and good luck.

PS – if it is a dense not very porous clay that has been used for a long time it will take time to get the oils out. If it is fairly porous clay it should be fairly easy to ‘clean’.

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Wonks said

I don’t remember where I watched it, but I once stumbled across a video that was discussing an old ship wreckage and they found a crazy stash of extremely antique yixing (like 1700s or something), and they talked in depth about resetting it’s flavors, removing minerals and patina. Mostly they relied on some odd boiling technique, but I don’t remember specifics. They may have also used ultrasonic pools too. Gosh, I suppose this post was worthless…. but I’m sure you could find it with some googling.

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I think it’s relatively easier to reset from one tea to another tea, and even if you can’t completely zero it, it’s tea after all. It could be hard to reset a teapot from fragrant oil. I remember seeing quite a few people complaining it’s hard to clean empty metal tin from certain flavored tea. And metal is not even absorptive as clay.

indeed this is true. I have a couple of heavily smoked teas that were in tins … I washed them several times, and then left them out to air dry and left them to air out for a couple of MONTHS and the tea smell was still in them. So you probably can “reset” the yixing, to a degree. But, depending upon how long it has been used, there may still be some evidence of the tea in there after the reset.

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