Jade and the taste of tea | HOJO Online Speciality Tea Shop

It is not only clay teapot or tetsubin that improves the taste of tea. Do you believe that jade or stone could also change the taste of tea?

The Jade can improves the taste of tea

We often heard that some materials can change the taste of tea, like with Zhuni or Zhisha. To many tea lovers, this is not news. Nevertheless, have you experienced Jade can improves the taste of the tea?
In the market, there are 2 types of jade, jadeite and nephrite. The jadeite is the harder stone and it is generally more precious.

The jade cup gives soft and smooth taste

With the jade cup, the taste of tea becomes soft and smooth. Both jadeite and nephrite changes the taste of tea to quite great extent. If compared to Banko clay, the changes from the Jade cup are slightly more obvious, although not everyone could tell the differences. We always conduct tea tasting and demonstration in my shop. Almost 20-30% of the people can hardly distinguish the differences of taste and flavour. If one has very low sensitivity in tasting, it’s even hard to differentiate whether quality tea is served. This is just like the Stradivarius or Hi-Fi effect; not everyone could appreciate the quality. Now I understand why the emperors of China were drinking tea from a jade cup.

Jade makes the flavour of tea milder

With the jade cup, the flavour is slightly being submerged and becomes more delicate. I noticed it was similar flavour when tea is poured into the reduction-fired clay, such as Banko clay. Apparently, jade is suitable for green tea or pu-erh ripe tea. For other types of tea, like Taiwan oolong, Tie Guan Yin or Phoenix oolong, one may find the flavour of these teas becomes milder.

Drink tea on the rock

In fact, it is not only the jade that affects the taste of tea. Any stone in the river are contributing to change the taste. The taste of river water reflects the type of stone exists in the river. It is interesting to collect some stones from the river and drink tea on the rock.