While we are on the topic of holiday presents and YiXing teapots here is a photo of a great new addition to my tea drinking vessels. My girlfriend picked this "
Small Pumpkin YiXing Clay Teapot" up for me online as a Christmas present this year. And while I think it's quite cute and I've been having some wonderful Formosa Oolong in it, it did cost me a few hours sleep on Christmas morning.
I have one of those minds that tend to have hard time settling down and may decide to rehash things that happened the previous day. Usually it happens as I'm going to bed and can be overcome by a good stretch or some such yogic exercise. This time it happened after several hours of sleep had passed. I was anxious to try out the teapot apparently and my mind started to think about it and something my girlfriend said rang a bell in my head. She had said, "It's a little smaller than I was expecting." and although that's never really something you want to hear from your girlfriend I was quite certain that she was referring to the teapot.
Suddenly I was awake in a way that cannot be ignored. My mind was wandering into thoughts like "Did she say that because it was so expensive?" and "Where did this come from?" Not for any distrust of my girlfriend but I know that there are a lot of disreputable places online and I've seen more than a few places selling YiXing teapots for twice or even thrice the going price. Now I'm not referring to legitimate collector quality teapots, I mean the exact same brand and obviously from the same shop but way more expensive. My girlfriend could tell that I liked the present and it wouldn't be like her to spoil it by saying something like "Those bastards ripped me off! @$#@! We're sending that back with a one way ticket to hell!!!!"
By now it's 5AM and I know that I'm not going to get back to sleep until I know whether or not I'm going to say something like that myself. She's fast asleep and I not going to wake her to ask, "How much did my present cost?" so I went to the computer and looked it up. I was quite relieved at her fiscal choice and went back to sleep quite comfortably for a few more hours.
She was shocked but not surprised when I told her what I had done. Although I didn't want to part with it, if she had been ripped off I would gladly have waited another month or so while we returned it and bought the same one from another company for a reasonable price if need be.
I know that all YiXing teapots should be unique and while I accept and appreciate that it would seem that the picture they have online is very different from the one I wound up with. Most noticeable is that the baby pumpkin on my teapot is not orange (visible near the bottom of the handle on mine) and the shape is much more round on their example photo. Like I said, I can appreciate the minute differences of each and every one but the colored orange thing does bother me since I know that details like that are probably what made her choose this one in the first place.
It makes a nice little cup of tea as I've been noticing and that is foremost in my judgment of a nice teapot. I am a little worried about a tiny little line in the center bottom of the pot that I don't recall seeing before yesterday (I did a rather thorough examination of it and it's a very fine flaw if it is one. Most people probably wouldn't even be able to see it.) I'm not sure if it's the beginning of a crack or even if that is something I should worry about. I've heard many a story about famous teapots that were broken then placed back together and made all the better for it. It's not like I've done anything out of the ordinary to it. For now I'm going to go with the assumption that many cups of tea in it will absorb into it making it an attractive character trait. As long as it doesn't start leaking I'm all good.
Now go have a cup.
