31 Days off Your Duff {Day 13} - Yixing Clay

O for Oolong!

For the last day in my tea week, I shall talk about an item that every avid tea lover should have:

A Yixing Clay tea vessel (pot or cup).

I just finally got my first (of many), and I am so thrilled to start using it.

The outside of my Yixing Tea Traveler

What is Yixing Clay

Why, you ask, is this clay so vital to your tea experience?

Because, I answer, the yixing (pronounces ee-shing) purple clay is very porous and traditionally unglazed. This means that through continual use, the tea pot or cup will become "seasoned" with the flavour of your tea, enhancing each and every cup you drink.

It has been said that eventually, you don't even need to use tea leaves; the vessel will have enough flavour that you can just pour in some hot water. There are however plenty of people out there saying this is untrue, and it is too early in my Yixing experience to tell for myself.

Now since this clay absorbs flavour, you are supposed to only use one tea in it, or at least one sub-type of tea (black, green, Oolong, white, etc.). Otherwise your different teas may mix with disastrous consequences!

Extremely Brief History

Now, I've lost my book I was going to look up the origin from, but I faintly remember the facts.

The clay comes from a province in China called Jiangsu. It used to be made for creating artistic pottery, until one day some brilliant man thought,

"Hey, that would make a great tea pot!"

Of course, these teapots can still be called works of art. Each one is made by hand, and the artist leaves his "chop," or basically signature, on his creation; usually on the bottom of the pot, inside the lid, or both.

You can of course still buy these today, either old or new, cheap or expensive. Online and in certain brick and mortar stores, you can buy a yixing pot in just about any price range; from $20 up to... well, I don't know the most expensive ones, but I've seen plenty over $10,000.

My New Yixing

Now, since I'm way too on the go these days, I have not bought an actual pot yet. But I did just purchase a travel cup with the precious clay!

The outside is brushed steel, as you saw in the first picture, and the inside is made from Yixing clay.

This is not exactly a work of art, there is no "chop" in there, but it's good enough for an on-the-go tea drinker!

Since I'm hooked on some Milk Oolong right now, that's what I've been using. Which works, because this cup is from Teavana and that dragon is their symbol for Oolong anyway.

Oh also, this cup comes with a stainless steel strainer, for those who want to use it. I don't need it though; I just keep the leaves in the cup, drink all the tea, and pour more water over the used leaves. Oolong is good for multiple steepings, plus it sinks down to the bottom so it's not like I'm getting mouthfuls of leaves.


Have any of you ever heard of these teapots before? I think the ones in BBC Sherlock's "The Blind Banker" were Yixing, but I'm not sure.

I love Sherlock

31 Days off Your Duff {Day 12} - Unusual Uses for Tea

Bleh, I got sick today. And since I didn't prepare a post ahead of time, this one will be a short, simple list about some different uses of tea.



Tried and True

- A substitute for water when washing your hair (softens hair and adds some shine)
- A substitute for water when washing/rinsing your face (I use green tea in the
  mornings, after drinking some of it, for just a light wash)
- Potpourri (lavender herbal "tea" is my favourite to smell)
- Freeze into ice cubes to add to any drink, blend into a smoothie, or rub all over
  yourself when you need a refresher
- Relieve and help to heal a sunburn (soak yourself in some strong black tea)
- Soak tired feet in black tea (works as a pick-me-up, plus lessens foot odour)
- Cook with it, of course! (As in Lapsang Souchong Salmon)
- Give yourself a psychic reading (whether you believe in your reading or not, it's fun!)

Heard About

- A natural fertilizer/compost
- Dry up poison ivy (black tea applied to the rash)
- Eliminate odours in the fridge, litter box, carpet, shoes, etc.
- Polish wooden furniture (use a cloth soaked in tea)
- Shine mirrors (rub with tea bags or spray brewed tea - I really want to test this one soon!)
- Soothe tired, puffy, or infected eyes (place a wet tea bag on your eyes - simple, but I've yet to try it!)
- Age sheets of paper (dip the paper in black tea; when it dries, it will look antique - I always forget
  about this one)

Back to Resting...

Don't be fooled; there are oodles of other uses you can get from tea. These are just the ones my sick mind could think of.



Now, I'm getting back to drinking my green tea with raw honey. Yum!

Feel free to tell me about some uses that I missed!

31 Days off Your Duff {Day 11} - Sewing Your Own Teabags

Reason

One of my friends had just moved away when I decided to start selling full-leaf tea at my shop. She was very disappointed, as she loves tea and we had such an amazing variety here.

This got me wondering what kind of container I could send her several samples of teas in. As I had just recently discovered Pinterest, I was developing a very DIY mindset, and thought,

"Hey, wait! Surely I can just make my own teabags!"

So, I googled making your own teabags, and this cute little blog came up with just such a post.

A Beautiful Mess

All I needed was some thread, coffee filters, and something to dangle on the string. Easy! I had all those already.

Making the Bags

So I got to cutting out my coffee filters. I did all different shapes by just cutting two filters at once, and keeping the identical pieces together.

Next, I stitched them nearly all the way closed, leaving a hole for stuffing tea.

Now, don't make the same mistake I did at first: I didn't want to staple my strings to the bag, so my plan was just to leave a tail of thread when I was done. However, that means you need to end the sewing at a specific point - the place you want the string to actually hang from. As you can see from the pictures below, when I was finished sewing the heart my string ended up randomnly along the side somewhere.

After figuring that out, I was a little smarter with the rest. Once I had done most of the sewing on a teabag, I stuffed in about a tbls of tea, then finished up my stitches.

Lastly, I stapled the tail of the string to a matching cut-out shape, tied a knot around the staple, and ta-daa! I was done.

See the little stitched smiley face at the top? :)

Now, when you go to make your own, make them much bigger than I did. (For some reason, I have always had this mental block towards making things on a large scale) Full-leaf tea deserves to be free, so it can swirl around and properly infuse the water with it's goodness. A teabag is already going to inhibit that somewhat, so try to lessen the restriction as much as possible.

After that, just enjoy!