The tea - he used his hand like a stove top and warmed it that way. ^_^

As for the steam-bending, I don't think that it's possible — I think what's going on is that Iroh is a powerful bender (as in not all firebenders can do this), and he's bending the HEAT out of the steam. If you remember the episode "The Fire Lord and the Avatar", Sozin bent the heat out of the lava (NOTE: DID NOT BEND THE LAVA, JUST THE HEAT) to cool it down and make it into rock.

Interesting thought.

That's interesting, but I don't think he's bending steam. He was probably bending the heating source of the water, or making the water hot with fire bending. What I see is, instead of creating a flame, he can still use fire bending to heat things in general by making himself warmer, which would explain why the tea got hotter.

But that's my guess. :3

EDIT!

That's interesting... could possibly advanced benders of all types change their element in temperature? I mean, water to ice...

Very interesting, but I see only one problem with that, if he were mearly bending heat from his body (Such as when he used steam from nose to heat the spring) then wouldn't it just be heat? Not a steam form? What I mean is it would just be pure heat with no visible body, except possibly some shimmering. That of course is just my opnion/question.

Also, love the avatar Jin Ha.

Jin Ha - Water to Ice isn't changing an element. It's just changing the physical structure of the water. Basic chemistry — H₂O is still H₂O , whether it's aq (liquid), s (solid), or g (gas).

Myaku - That's true. The steam, however, goes where the heat goes.... that's kinda like saying that an airbender is also a leaf bender because the leaves go where the air is moved. Just because the steam moves along the heatwaves in the air, doesn't mean that the steam itself is the thing being bended.

That's what I mean Katara. It's not changing element, it's changing to solid which changes temperatures. So would any bender have the potential to do that with other elements other than fire and water? For example, could an earth bender change the earth into a liquid, like lava? Sure, that sounds extreme, but could it be possible? Or is it something only Water and Fire benders can do?

Ah, apologies for the misunderstanding.

I think, though, that it's something only Fire- and Water-benders can do, due to the nature of their element — that is, their element has more than one controllable form.

We saw that Sozin was able to take the heat out of the lava, thereby turning it into rock, but he couldn't bend the lava himself. Additionally, if lavabending was possible, don't you think Roku would've done it, as the Avatar?

And changing the earth into lava isn't possible for earthbenders (in fact I don't think the process of making lava to solid rock is reversable), because an extreme amount of heat would be needed.

I had to jump into this one. Ok, only Waterbenders can bend steam. End of story. But, steam, as Katara said, follows heat where it goes because without heat, it would just be water again. The Firebender's source of power is in his own body, his own heat. To firebend, they have to amplify that heat and expel it in the form of fire. I would think that only skilled firebenders would be able to pinpoint the heat like Sozin did in 'The Avatar and the Firelord'. Something like heating tea would probably be easier, but still, it would require more concentration than launching big fireballs, since they don't want the heat taken out in the form of fire, just, heat. Anyways, back to steam. I believe that the only reason Sozin could transfer heat is because he was a skilled firebender, and could focus it more. The steam just followed his heat. Just a more focused version of bending.

Exactly. Taking heat out of steam is just turning it into Water.
However, waterbenders aren't bending steam — they're bending the water vapor.

And yes, I do believe that only skilled fire benders can do this (Azula, Iroh, Sozin, Roku, maybe Aang and Zuko now, and Ozai).

And it's not the steam, I guess, following the heat, it's the water molecules. Can't have steam without water AND heat.

Well...In the motion of repositioning items on the desk in order to get the keyboard directly in front of my two hands... I have knocked Thad's ashtray into the floor, and must now clean up the mess. -.-;;

[After Picking Up The Mess]

I actually thought about this for a couple of nights while I was in the shower, because I love the water being almost hot enough to burn my skin. (Told you I'm a freak.)

Well, considering you need heat to make tea (I make it every day.), I think he had a flame which would heat the kettle and cause steam to arise. But, I don't remember the episode vividly, so if he did in fact use steam alone to heat the water (Which works since steam can become so hot it can cut right through you.), he probably had warmed up some water with his firebending and caused the steam to arise. This has nothing to do with waterbending.

I'm not sure if anyone else had made this clear or not, because I didn't want to read all the way through the posts. I just thought that, just in case they hadn't, I would respond. Lol.

But, like I said, I thought about the idea of steam bending. Like, let us say that a firebender is in a hot spring or a lake. Any body of water. They are attacked by random person, and shoot flames at the water in retaliation. Due to intense heat, the flames create steam that arises around the attacker's body. If the steam is hot enough, it burns through their skin causing an immense amound of pain and damage.

But, this would be God-Modding (If that's the term used here.) in my eyes.

Btw, if anyone thinks I'm wrong about the steam hurting someone that badly:

Thad's mom was in a car wreck at one time and her ankle had gotten sliced open. The car wasn't what almost cut her foot off, it was the intense steam from the engine. She still has a scar on the front of her ankle from where they had to put it back together. Miraculously, she still has feeling in the bottom of her foot.

Okay, there's my post. Lol.

Ok i know that I'm posting this really late, but i have an idea, it may be bad but it's just a thought. I don't think waterbenders can bend steam, only firebenders can. Look at it this way, steam is like hot water, its hot air, steam can actually burn you, and when firebenders bend the water ( not like actually bend it ) they bend the hot out of the water and it comes out as steam. Like many of you said, its the heat within them that can let them do this. Now waterbenders i think they don't bend steam out of water they bend mist, fog. In the episode the Day of Black Sun, the waterbenders created mist on the ship, not steam but mist. Unlike steam, mist is cool, and waterbenders are able to do this since there is no heat included, the heat that firebenders poses. So really i think that only firebenders can bend the steam out of water, and waterbenders can bend the mist out of water.

Thats my thought, i know it can be completely wrong, but eh i just wanted to let it out

Oh and i found this, it tells you how steam can burn you: www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-steam-burn.htm

Ok I'm gonna dive in with my crazy spectulation here, what if when Iroh is 'Steambending' he's superheating the air as he breathes it out and so forth, since whilst steam is a form of water air you blow out of your nose or mouth is also part water vapour, so there's my two cents on how Iroh is able to steambend.

As for bending steams in a hotspring, I think we can just assume that Iroh was heating the water and got steam as a result, though I don't super remember that episode myself.

This is quite interesting, so I'll add my 5 cents to it. Or maybe I'll even spare a dime.

Firstly, I want to give a definition of steam so that everyone is exactly on the same page. The non-scientific definition of steam is water that has been heated to a high temperature, and has therefore changed state from liquid, to gas. (...so much for non-scientific...but anyways.) Now, I do not believe that fire benders are able to bend steam, just heat. Now because they are able to bend heat, Iroh bended heat into his tea cup, which heated the tea inside. The tea, being hot water, gave off steam. Nothing more to it than that. Sort of the same thing with the hot springs, though I hardly remember the episode. Iroh bended heat directly into the water, heating the water, which gave off steam, though if they were hot springs, I don't see why he would need to do that, but that's beside the point.

Now, since fire benders bend heat, I suppose it would be possible for a very powerful bender to bend the heat out of steam and turn it back to liquid water the same way Ozai took the heat away from lava and cooled it down into rock, but I don't think it would be possible for them to actually bend the steam. Water benders, on the other hand, could bend steam because it is just water, in a different form, just like ice.

On the side, I seriously think there should be a board outlining the laws of bending, so no one will argue while they're rping about things like whether or not they are or are not allowed to bend whatever.

In any case, that's my 10 cents so far. Feel free to correct me about the episodes, since I can barely remember them.

To back up the fact that waterbender's can indeed bend steam and not just mist or fog, I invite people to review "the Secret of the Fire Nation" episode. In which, the gAang sneaks into the big drill machine, and breaks a pipe which starts gushing out hot steam. When an engineer comes to fix the problem, Katara steps out and causes all of the hot steam to coalesce on the engineer and freeze, rendering him immobile. Pretty sure that counts as Steambending.

Also, a little off topic, but what if Firebenders don't really bend fire? What if it's just heat they're bending, and the heat just happens to burn the oxygen it comes into contact with. I think this would make a lot of sense considering they are the only bender's able to create their element, and they have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to simply create heat without producing flame (heating tea, heating a spring, lighting incense, warming their own body).