I own five kinds of pot. The most expensive and most famous of them gets used about ten times a year, and it took me a decade to work out why. It is not the material, and it is not the price.
Search for a donabe in English and you get one answer: a rice cooker from Iga, direct flame only, around $200. That is a good pot and it is not the only question. Three decisions that change which one you should own.
Six years, and for four of them I was slowly ruining it by following the one rule everyone repeats about cast iron. What actually built up on the surface, how it came off, and the change that stopped it coming back.
Two winters of soap, soaking, and no re-seasoning — and the pot is fine. What the standard donabe rules are actually protecting, why half of them may not apply to yours, and how to tell in one look.
I wrapped it in newspaper and forgot about it for years. What copper actually buys you, what the tin lining is for, and why trying to make it look new again was the wrong goal.