Three claims wearing one word
Seasoning a pot is said to do three things: to change the pot itself, to change the tea brewed in it afterwards, and to require a specific opening ritual before either can begin. These are separate claims with very different levels of support, and they are almost always presented together as a single practice with a single justification, which is what makes the subject so hard to reason about. Separating them is the only way to get a useful answer, because the strongest version of the argument — the physical one, about porosity — is routinely used to justify the weakest version of the ritual. What follows takes the three in turn and says plainly which is which. The point is not to debunk the practice, most of which is harmless and some of which is genuinely important, but to make clear which parts a buyer is paying for and which parts a new owner actually has to do.
The part that is simply true
Unglazed stoneware fired below full vitrification retains some open porosity, and liquid entering that pore structure does not entirely leave again. Over many sessions the interior darkens, the exterior develops a sheen where it is handled and wiped down, and the pot visibly and permanently changes. None of this is in dispute: it is a physical property of the material, it is why these pots are made from these clays rather than from porcelain, and it is observable on any pot that has been in regular use for a year. It is also the origin of the entire practice. Seasoning names something that genuinely happens whether or not anyone performs a ceremony to encourage it, and a pot used daily with no ritual whatsoever will season perfectly well. That is worth saying at the outset, because much of what follows is about claims built on top of this one that do not inherit its solidity.
The part that is plausible and not established
Whether the absorbed material comes back out into subsequent brews in any perceptible quantity is a separate question, and it is the one the practice is actually sold on. It is entirely plausible: the pore structure holds residue, hot water enters that structure under repeated thermal cycling, and some exchange must occur. What is missing is any measurement of the magnitude. The claims made in enthusiast writing — that a well-seasoned pot will brew a passable cup from hot water alone, that it rounds the edges of a young tea, that it adds infusions to a session — are considerably stronger than anything that has been demonstrated, and they are the claims that set prices. TeaHQ records the mechanism as plausible and the magnitude as unestablished. It also notes that the effect is easy to confuse with the well-documented difference in heat retention, which is present from the first day, is not seasoning at all, and accounts for a good deal of what people attribute to a seasoned pot.
The part that is folklore
The elaborate opening rituals — boiling a new pot in a pan of the tea it will be dedicated to, simmering it with tofu or sugarcane, burying it in leaf for a week — are widely repeated and have no established effect beyond removing manufacturing residue, which plain boiling water accomplishes. Some are actively risky rather than merely useless: thermal shock in a boiling pan cracks pots, and sugar residues left in a porous body are a poor idea for reasons that need no elaboration. They are best handled as custom, which is a respectable thing to be, rather than as maintenance. The honest version of the advice is that a new pot needs rinsing thoroughly with hot water and then using, and that the seasoning which matters accumulates from use and cannot be shortcut by any procedure. Someone who enjoys the ritual should carry on; someone who has been told it is necessary has been told something that is not.
One pot, one tea, in its strong and weak forms
The strong form of the convention says a pot must be dedicated to a single named tea and never used for another. The weak form says it should be kept to one category — roasted oolong, or shou pu-erh, or green tea — and not moved between them. The weak form follows directly from the porosity claim and is worth following regardless of whether the flavour-return effect turns out to be large, because the risk is asymmetric: if the effect is real, a shared pot contaminates everything brewed in it for years, and if it is not, a dedicated pot has cost you nothing but the inconvenience. That is a straightforward decision under uncertainty and it comes out the same way whichever view of the evidence you take. The strong form is a collecting habit and a pleasant one, and it is not a brewing requirement — nobody has shown that a pot used for two different rock oolongs is worse for either.
Care that genuinely matters
Rinse with water only. Detergent enters a porous body and comes back out of it for a long time afterwards, and it is the one contamination that is definitely and obviously perceptible — this is the single rule worth being strict about. Pour boiling water over the outside of the pot as well as filling it, because a pot cooling from the outside drags the inside down with it and undoes the preheat. Let it dry fully before putting it away and store it with the lid off, since a closed damp pot grows mould inside the clay itself, which is the commonest way a good pot is ruined and is very difficult to reverse. Do not scrub the interior patina off in a fit of tidiness; it is the one part of the seasoning story that is unambiguously real, and it takes years to replace. None of this is demanding, and all of it matters more than which clay was chosen.
What a pot cannot do
It cannot improve a tea. A mediocre rock oolong in an excellent pot is a mediocre rock oolong with better heat management, and the widespread implication that clay elevates whatever is brewed in it is a marketing position rather than an observation anyone has defended. The demonstrable benefits are real and worth having: sustained temperature through a long session, which genuinely changes what the later infusions give, and a heavy, pleasant object that makes the act of brewing better. Both are available from the first day, neither requires seasoning, and both can be assessed before buying. Everything beyond that is worth enjoying for its own sake and is not worth paying a large premium for on the strength of the claim alone — particularly since the premium is usually attached to the part of the story with the least behind it.