Musubi Kiln’s Teapot is Helping Me Overcome a Coffee Reliance
I gave up coffee a while ago. About a month ago. 41 days and 37 minutes ago. But who’s counting? It was for the best, and I’m feeling better for it now. The thing I miss about coffee is the relieving wake up after the first cup. The thing I won’t miss is the full […]
Our editors independently select the products we recommend. We may earn a commission on items bought through our links.
I gave up coffee a while ago. About a month ago. 41 days and 37 minutes ago. But who’s counting? It was for the best, and I’m feeling better for it now. The thing I miss about coffee is the relieving wake up after the first cup. The thing I won’t miss is the full anxiety attack that settles in after one cup plus one drop. More importantly though, I missed the rituals. I missed having something to hold when milling around the city. I missed having an iced thing in the summer and missed having to adjust my sleep schedule purposely to do this. I nearly took up cigarettes just to have something to do. (I didn’t, I’m kidding. Hi, mom.)
Instead, what I did was take up tea. This is an all too familiar thing, and while people around the world drink black tea like it’s coffee, I still needed to account for the high caffeine in black tea. I now drink mostly green tea, which isn’t free of caffeine but allows for the ritual of cup after cup without having a heart attack.
While tea drinking is…fine…it also allows for a bit of retail therapy. I used to have a beautiful Chemex pour over I’d use to make coffee, and a Hario hand grinder to get the beans just right. Now, I needed new tea accessories. I didn’t want the dainty tea cups. They felt too fragile in my hand. Plus, I already have great cups I use for coffee from Roman & Williams Guild. (College coffee mugs are meant for keeping pencils on a desk, nothing more.) What I really needed was a teapot to brew all this in.
So often, teapots are small things that brew one cup at a time or two at the most. I wanted something that would be able to handle a larger sum, so I went with this one from Musubi Kiln. This one is 28 ounces, so just over three cups, which is the perfect amount. I’ll also occasionally brew it the night before and stick it in the fridge so it’s chilled by morning. (Yes, I do like it that strong.)
The other nice thing is that with many Japanese teapots, as opposed to American/European styles, the handle is at the top and not from the side. This means that when pouring the weight of a full put isn’t being balanced on just one finger. Instead, you have more leverage for a clean pour of one cup. Not to mention, carrying the pot from the kitchen, to say, the bedroom to bring someone tea in bed on Sunday morning, is an easier ask.
From a style perspective, I also like how this pot has some imperfect lines, and the scalloped edge at the top. Tea pots can be ornate in their painted sides, but I like how this one, like the intentionally rumply and crinkled linen sheets and newspapers on Sunday, are all perfectly imperfect.
