Fruit, Sugar, and Yixing Clay
Sometimes I like adding fresh apple pieces to my tea for added flavor. I haven’t done so yet with my yixing pot because I’m not sure if the sugar would cause a problem with mold or anything. I’ve looked it up online and no one seems to know for sure. Has anyone used fruit or sugar in their yixing pot with success?
I can’t say I’ve had a problem but that’s only because I don’t use yixing. I would recommend not putting anything in there other than leaves but on the other hand it might be okay if you rinse the pot thoroughly after use. Which kind of works against the value of yixing to build up flavours. Definitely wouldn’t add actual sugar or flavourings though.
Wouldn’t it impart an apple flavour to all your teas brewed in the yixing? I haven’t brewed any flavoured teas in my yixing so far because of that.
I’d lean on doing this with a glass or ceramic pot. Just thinking about cleaning, you don’t want to use soap in yixing, and any sugar residue could create problems or at least attract bugs.
I guess it just depends on how effective boiling water is as a cleaner. I might just do it for experiment purposes and report my findings :) lol
Another thing I thought of is with one of my yixing pots, maybe it didn’t season that great, but my first few months it flavor sucked or had extra clay like notes. If I wanted a fruit tea, I’d want more pure and clean taste. Over time, it’ll give back, but I can see it being a rough ride until then with a flavored/sugared/fruity tea. I wonder how it will put back too and unsure how that would taste.
But yeah, maybe not an issue for you, and yixing pots are collectibles, will be more exclusive as all the clay gets used up, but if I wanted to buy a used yixing teapot and heard the pot was used for teas with sugar/fruit, I would not buy it. But in the end, your tea pot, feel free to experiment!
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