TheNHBushman.com

I have strict orders from friends to blog on every single new tea item I acquire! In keeping with this directive, I present a new large teapot to you. There is nothing special about this pot really, but it looks nice, is inexpensive and brews tea well. I refer to these kinds of pots a “convenience pots” because they typically aren’t used for brewing gong-fu tea. These pots are good for entertaining a large group of people because you can brew enough tea to fill all the cups on each round, with little waiting. While I do prefer gong-fu tea brewing, there is a wait between infusions that sometimes isn’t socially preferable. My friends do all enjoy sitting around the cha pan and being entertained by the gong-fu brewing process, but sometimes you just want to sit down and watch a movie or have a group discussion in the living room, not in the tea room. This pot is made for that order.

In these shots I am making (yes, its true!) Jasmine flavored tea, one of my summertime favorites for quenching my thirst. One has to be careful how much tea is placed into the pot because the steeping times are considerably longer than when brewing gong-fu style.

This shot shows how large the pot is in relation to my swirled cups. While not huge, it makes enough tea to fill all of the cups with a single infusion - something that none of my smaller gong-fu pots are capable of.

One of the benefits of having a large cha pan like mine (or like these) is that the cha pan protects even larger pots like this one. You can see how the pot nestles right into a curved radius that the carver provided for this very purpose.

Unfortunately, the camera flash illuminates everything on the cha pan and makes it look dirty! I assure you that its clean, and the residue is from evaporated tea that has drained away.