If there ever were a point at which a person can have too many teapots…
I must soon be approaching it.
Unpacking and then organizing all my stuff after my move has led me to reassess what I have, and at least think about (and perhaps act upon) what I should keep and what I don’t need/want anymore. What you see above are all my unglazed teapots – there are a few missing, because they live in boxes and I didn’t quite feel like taking them out. Of these 100+ items, however, I really only use these ones on a very regular basis
A number of others I use more sparingly
Some I used to use a lot, but for various reasons, I don’t anymore
And some that I know I’ll never, ever use, because I got them for more or less decorative purposes, and they are sized and shaped in such a way as to making tea brewing almost impossible
Among all the Yixing pots here, there are a few tokoname, which are more or less easily identifiable. There are also the ugly ducklings — Santou pots, which are less obvious.
After I took this picture I realized that one eluded my eyes and hid among a bunch of yixing pots.
So, what does that leave me? There are still dozens of pots that I have not accounted for, basically. One reason is because quite a few of them are in bad shape, cleanliness wise. I need to wash and clean them before I can actually use them, and am currently in the process of doing that. I also need to start doing a better job of rotating my teapots so that I have less “rarely, if ever, used” ones and more “frequently used” ones instead. In other words, I need to spread the tea around. Finally, I need to start culling the collection. There are some items here that I know I’ll never use (personal preference), or are just not practical (usually too big). So, those need to go.
