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Iron Tea Pots?

Traditional Japanese tea pots
With continuing reports of the beneficial effects of drinking green tea, interest in Japanese tea has burgeoned over the past five years or so. And with fine gyokuro and sencha now available from reliable sources in the U.S., tea drinkers and restauranteurs have been buying Japanese teapots to infuse these precious green leaves. There are two basic forms of pots for these teas. The most common is the kyūsu, a pot with a side or top handle and a strainer that is an integral part of the spout, usually holding no more than 4 ounces of liquid. Less common, because a little more difficult to use, the oshidashi is a small cup with a shallow spout, a lid, and no handle. When pouring out the tea the lid is held just so, keeping the tealeaves from spilling the cup. Both of these types are usually made of porcelain or pottery, although glass is an elegant alternative. A small oshidahi , holding only a couple of ounces of fluid, is often used for gyokuro. Larger teapots (dobin) for infusing coarse teas such as bancha and hoji-cha are usually made of clay, although sometimes aluminum kettles are used as a substitute in cheap eating establishments.

They look nice...
Iron is a bad material for infusing fine teas. The iron reacts with the tannin in the tea, discoloring and flavoring it. Even when enameled, the tea comes in contact with un-enamelled parts of the spout, rim, and lid of the teapot, and as the enamel deteriorates, iron seeps into the body of the pot as well. They are also too heavy to be used effectively with one hand, putting stress on the wrist and lower arm. In Japan, small cast iron teapots are NEVER used for infusing fine tea. They are sold mainly as souvenirs by makers of cast iron tea KETTLES. American restauranteurs and tea shops have misunderstood the use of these tiny kettles in Japan. When challenged, the explanation is always, “they don’t break.” Apparently where teapots are concerned, cheap is beautiful, but no one would think of serving an elegant meal (or any meal), on cast-iron plates because they don’t break.

Forget Cast Iron!
Elegantly shaped cast-iron kettles have a long tradition going back to medieval times in Japan, where they are still used to boil water for the tea ceremony, set on a charcoal brazier. In pre-modern times, cruder iron kettles were kept on the boil in farmhouses, hung over the hearth on a wooden hook. Sometimes coarse roasted tea leaves and twigs were thrown into the kettle and kept over the fire so that the hot liquid would always be ready for the farmer and his family taking a break from endless work of running a farm.
The Uji tea merchant and promoter whom In Pursuit of Tea works with to ship much of its fine Japanese teas has never seen anyone EVER use a small cast-iron teapot to infuse tea. In fact, he was puzzled by my question when I asked if he had ever used one. Patricia J. Graham, author of Tea of the Sages: The Art of Sencha, has never heard of such a thing. She points out, though, that luxurious gold and silver tea utensils, including kettles, have been used in the past, and pewter is still one of the materials favored by practitioners of senchadō, the sencha tea ceremony, for kyusu teapots and the saucers on which the tiny cups are served.
Earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, glass, pewter, steel, gold, silver—there’s a whole world of beautiful materials suited for making fine teas. Forget cast iron.

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