Sterilizing my Yixing pot

Some time ago, I finally took the plunge and bought my very first Yixing pot.  I was a bit scared but had found some great pu'er teas and felt confident that I wouldn't be wasting my money on a pot I wouldn't ever use.

Dan, the owner at Trailhead Tea, where I bought the pot, gave me great instructions on how to sterilize it BEFORE seasoning.  So here's what I did.

I started by covering the pot with bottled water.  The desert is notorious for it's hard water and I really didn't want all those chemicals in my pot so I wasted the water but I think for good reason.

I made sure that only the bottom of the pot touched the pan.  You don't want the handle or spout touching the sides.  The lid I put next to the pot, handle up for stability, also not touching the sides or the pot.

I've read a lot of tutorials that say to boil but Dan told me to simmer.  Boiling creates bubbles that are potentially large enough to disrupt the pot.  The large bubbles could knock it over and cause it to break.  We don't want that before we even use it so simmering is a safer way to go.

Heating up.

I covered the pot with water and set my heat to medium.  I wanted to bring the heat up slowly so as not to subject the pot to any kind of extreme temperature difference.  Once the pot was simmering very gently I set a timer for 30 minutes.  Or at least that's what I tried.  I think I got up to look at it every five minutes or so.  It was my first pot so I think I was a bit over protective.

This was as bubbly as my water got.

Once it had simmered for 30 minutes I turned off the heat and left it for a few hours so it could thoroughly cool down. Then I drained the water, which had more dust/sediment particles than I expected, and left the pot out for a day or two to dry completely.  

Yay!  Squeaky clean!  Stay tuned for my take on Yixing pot seasoning.