For premium quality loose leaf tea, water becomes a critical ingredient.  While a flavored or cheap tea might mask the water, you will notice a difference between the types of water used for a delicate white tea.  The Chinese tea masters will tell you the best water to use with a particular tea is water sourced from the area where the tea is grown.  In this way, the tea and water will already be familiar with each other.  Of course, this is completely impractical for all of us, who don’t live in China’s tea growing regions.

Our recommendation is you use Spring water, tap water (if you are fortunate enough to have awesome  tap water), or to  filter your tap water with a Brita filter.   If you don’t like drinking your tap water, you aren’t likely to enjoy it in your tea.   I have a cabin in the mountain of Oregon, which has the purest water on the planet coming out of the tap.  It produces wonderful tea without any filtration.  If you too are lucky enough to have a well or pure tap water, try it with a delicate white tea.   If you like it, then you are likely good to go with all types of teas.

In Seattle, the tap water tastes horrific.  I am not sure why, because if you go to the Seattle.gov website it says “Seattle Public Utilities closely monitors all taste and odor problems reported, in addition to performing flavor profile analyses on a regular basis. Flavor profile analysis uses a group of trained panelists to identify flavors and/or aromas in raw and treated waters.”   Really?  A group of trained panelists?  You would think surrounded by those pristine mountains, we would have delicious water.  It is so heavily chlorinated, I feel like I left my mouth open, while diving into the swimming pool.  It doesn’t taste good out of the tap and a Brita filter is essential.   My first choice in Seattle is Crystal Geyser Spring Water.     It seems to be fairly neutral and goes well with all teas.  I buy the gallon jugs to try to keep the price down.

Distilled water is best avoided as it will leave the tea tasting bland.  Some degree of mineral content in the water will enhance the flavor of the tea and distilled water lacks minerals.  The water should be cold or at room temperature.  We suggest you don’t use hot water.   If you have doubts about these recommendations, I would encourage you to experiment in order to form your opinions on how to make the most flavorful tea at your location.

In many Asian countries, they boil their water in a cast iron teapot.  The cast iron will add minerals and flavor to the water.  It softens the water making ideal for tea.  Even if the teapot is rusty, it won’t harm you and will enhance the tea.  The more seasoned the cast iron teapot the better.  The water boiled in these cast iron teapots tastes delicious and many of my Asian friends will boil their drinking water in a cast iron teapot.  Cast iron teapots are expensive.  You don’t need to buy an antique heirloom.  If you search, you’ll find many heirlooms, which sell for thousands of dollars each.   To get something of decent quality and craftsmanship, you’ll probably need to spend in excess of $150.

Personally, I use a Japanese cast iron teapot called a tetsubin.  Beside is a picture of my 1.2L (40 ounce) tetsubin.  If I were to buy a second one, I would probably buy the 1.8L version…or larger.  My reason for wanting larger is because you can only fill the water to the spout hole.  It is easy to boil over if you fill it above the spout and you have to monitor it carefully.

I bought my tetsubin from Japan.  My rationale was the Japanese are perfectionists and the quality of their craftsmanship is exceptional.  My tetsubin is beautiful to look at and I leave it out on my kitchen counter.  

The Chinese make cast iron teapots too, Zhu Tie Hu (铸铁壶).   If we find a Chinese craftsman who meets our quality standards, we might offer them in the future.  For now, we would encourage you to buy a Japanese tetsubin.  

We intend to carry Japanese tetsubins and expect an entire blog post soon on their merits.  In the interim, if you need to buy one, I suggest you consider the brand Oigen.   It is a Japanese manufacturer of cast iron products, including teapots.  I use one personally.  It is beautiful and the quality is first rate.

One question you might wonder about is how to you keep the lid on when you pour the water out of the tetsubin?  The cast iron lid will get hot.  The handle will be cool, but sticking your finger on the top of the lid will burn you.  When you first start pouring the water it doesn’t matter, but when it starts to empty and your angle changes, the cast iron lid might fall off and shatter your tea pot and cups!  I solve this dilemma with the doohickey pictured to the left.  One hand holds the handle of the tetsubin, the other hand holds this doohickey which keeps the lid firmly in place.  I suppose I could use a hot pot mitt, but then I wouldn’t be able to use the word doohickey in my blog post!! 🙂