In winter, when the weather is cold, many friends like to use purple clay teapots to make tea, drink tea to nourish the body, and play with teapots to nourish the mind. In the case of vague rules for winter maintenance of purple clay teapots, it is easy to accidentally break the beloved teapot, which is very distressing. Today, I will share with you some practical winter teapot maintenance experience.
Warm the teapot before brewing tea:
It is not suitable to directly pour hot water into the teapot to brew tea in winter, because the temperature of the teapot is low in winter, and directly pouring boiling water into it may cause cracks.
But maintaining the teapot in winter is not as scary and cumbersome as imagined.
Before using the purple clay teapot for brewing, first fill the teapot with warm water about halfway, close the lid, shake it several times to heat it evenly, and pour it out. To avoid waste, this water can be used to rinse teacups and fairness cups. With such simple steps, you can warm the teapot and clean the teapot and tea sets. Finally, put tea leaves into the teapot and brew it normally.
The principle of this method:
Because objects expand and contract rapidly due to heat and cold, especially when heated or cooled unevenly, it is easy for different parts of the object to expand/contract to different degrees, resulting in highly concentrated stress. For materials with high hardness, low elongation, strong brittleness and low thermal conductivity efficiency, cracks are very likely to appear under highly concentrated stress.
Things to note when raising teapots in winter
1. Use tea soup to nourish the teapot, making it smooth and soft
When making tea, you can pour the tea soup on the purple clay teapot. This way, the tea soup will be easily evaporated by the heat of the teapot and at the same time, it will be easily absorbed by the surface of the teapot.
2. Keep it clean and develop a patina
Tea stains will accumulate on the surface of the pot. You need to use a pot care brush to gently scrub it to keep it clean. After wiping and washing for a long time, a matte layer will appear on the surface of the pot, which is called "patina". This matte will not fade due to high temperature and high pressure washing, which shows elegance and taste.
Some people use oily hands and oily cloth to wipe the body of the pot to create a shiny look, which the old people call "thief shine". However, once washed, the shiny look disappears, but the oil stains cannot be completely removed, leaving patches of dirt and scars, which even look like a disfigured appearance. To maintain a pot, you need to "nurture" it, and never rush for quick success. Only by keeping the pot clean can you produce a high-quality pot.
3. Don’t take care of the teapot deliberately
The beauty of the teapot after maintenance is revealed, which is originally a byproduct of drinking tea for leisure or using tea to cultivate the mind. If you are too eager for quick success and instant benefits, and you don’t even drink tea, and you only want to get the "patina" of the teapot and "lose your ambition", then you have deviated from the meaning of teapot maintenance. Drinking tea and maintaining the teapot naturally is the way for tea lovers and teapot lovers to actively live and devote themselves to the world and practice the way of tea and the way of teapots.
In fact, it does not require very complicated steps to protect the purple clay teapot. It is precisely because you are more careful in daily use that you may be able to protect your beloved purple clay teapot. When the temperature is low in winter, the maintenance of the purple clay teapot must be meticulous and step-by-step, with "protection" as the main and "maintenance" as the auxiliary, so that you can keep warm in winter.
