Description

Cooling Vessel (jap. “Yuzamashi”), white, 240ml. The stylish ceramic vessel for cooling down tea water to the required temperature before using it to prepare tea is not a Must, but definitely a highly practical and conventient aid in particular for the preparation of green tea such as Japanese Green Tea.

As the preparation of green tea generally requires lower water temperatures (60°C – 75°C) than needed for preparing Oolong Tea (75°C – 85°), black tea (85°C -95°C) or Pu Erh Tea (90° C – 100°C), it is nessecary to cool down the freshly boiled water to the adequate temperature before pouring it over the tea leaves. This can either be done in the same vessel that is used for heating the water in the first place or in a separate cooling vessel, where the tea water makes a “stopover” on its way to the teapot.

The Japanese tea culture is a green tea culture. Though the processing of tea leaves to Oolong-Tee und schwarzem Tee is also known and common in Japan, these forms of tea processing represent only a very small portion of the total tea production in Japan, while green tea in the form of Sencha, Bancha, Shincha, Kabusecha, Gyokuro und Matcha Tea as well as some “derivate products” of these green teas, such as Hojicha, Kyobancha or Genmaicha, form the big major part. While in China glass teapots (“cha-hay”) are preferably used as cooling vessels, the ceramic (porcelain or clay) Yuzamashi has its origin in the Japanese tea culture with its particular need for water cooling in tea preparation due to the prevalence of green tea.

The cooling vessel is an integral part of the Japanese tea ceremony. Here, the tea water used for preparing Matcha tea must be cooled down to an appropriate temperature just like that used for other types of green tea.

The speed, at which water is cooling down, depends on the water volumen and the surrounding temperature. While 10°C per minute can be used as a rule of thumb, it be considered in addition to the factors mentioned above that the temperature of water also drops by some degrees every transfer of the water from one vessel to another. Given room temperature and two such transfers, the tea water therefore needs to remain only for a relatively short period in the cooling vessel in order to reach the desired temperature.