I drink a lot of tea and use a lot of teaware. It isn’t uncommon for me to drink three, four, five different teas in a day. Some I brew in my Yixing pots, others I brew in a gaiwan or some other form of teaware: All under the watchful and beady eyes of Claudius, my little tea-pet.
I am not always as careful as I should be about cleaning my teaware after each use, though. Take my gaiwans, for example. I’ll rinse the bowls with boiling water between teas, but I may leave the base/saucer on its own for a bit.
This is a bad habit, though, and one I am trying to break, because spilled tea evaporates and becomes sticky. When spilled tea is left in the gaiwan-saucer, bowl and saucer can become lightly “glued” together. When I pick up the bowl, the saucer comes with it. . .but because tea is not a very good adhesive, the saucer then falls and (possibly) breaks.
Moral of the story? If I am rinsing my gaiwan bowl with water between teas, I need to also rinse the saucer. I’d advise everyone to do the same!
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Such a great point; I’m so so guilty of doing this sort of thing, whether it be with my cups or steeping tools. Being at college and having to wash your dishes in the bathroom is totally NOT ideal haha. That’s my least favorite thing about tea in college, everything has to be washed by hand in the bathroom, UGH.
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I’m also guilty of this…ek!
Simply not using the saucer will also solve your problem. :>
I’m a fan of keeping teaware clean anyway, but as you can see in this picture, my girlfriend’s not:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3400/3219763636_0b4493ef5e_o.jpg