Teapot

Vessel for preparing and serving tea

For other uses, see Teapot (disambiguation).

A teapot is a vessel used for

thermally insulating cover called a tea cosy

may be used to enhance the steeping process or to prevent the contents of the teapot from cooling too rapidly.

History

China

The switch to specialized vessel for tea brewing was powered by the change from the

Flagstaff House Museum of Teaware; it has been dated to 1513 and is attributed to Gong Chun,^[3] the "father of Yixing teapot".^[4]

Early teapots, like those still used in modern

Gongfu tea ceremony, are small by western standards meant for the individual consumption of tea.^[5] They use a higher ratio of leaves to water, which enables the brewer to control the variables of brewing to create several small infusions. After brewing, tea would then be decanted into a separate vessel, and distributed into the small cups of several drinkers, and brewed again. This allows the tea to be skillfully brewed, and for the flavor changes to be experienced through the various infusions.^[6]

Teapots made from pottery materials such as clay have been hand-fired for tens of thousands of years, originally in China. Clay is a popular material for teapots, as they tend to retain heat very well.[7]

Many traditional Chinese teaware is yixing ware. Yixing and other regional clays are left unglazed. This allows the clay to absorb the flavor of the teas brewed over time, and enhance the flavor of the tea going forward. Some Gongfu practitioners designate their unglazed pots for specific types, sometimes even specific varietals of tea.

From the end of the 17th century tea was shipped from China to Europe as part of the export of exotic spices and luxury goods. The ships that brought the tea also carried porcelain teapots. The majority of these teapots were painted in

blue and white underglaze

. Porcelain, being completely vitrified, will withstand sea water without damage, so the teapots were packed below deck whilst the tea was stowed above deck to ensure that it remained dry.[8]

Japan

Yixing teapots became very popular in Japan, with the Banko ware in particular being a close copy of the Chinese originals.^[5] The most significant improvements were the refinements of the shape and the extensive use of the "overhead" handle that makes carrying of the teapot easier.^[9]

Morocco

In Morocco, stainless steel teapots are an essential to make Moroccan mint tea. Moroccan teapots are heat resistant and can be put directly on the stove. With colorful tea glasses, they are part of the Moroccan tea ritual. The tea is considered to be drinkable only when it has foam on top. Teapots have a long curved spout in order to pour tea from a height of around 12 inches (30 cm) above the glasses, which produces foam on the surface of the tea.^[10] Their designs can range from simple to heavily-decorated.^[11]

Tibet

Tashilhunpo

, Tibet

Teapots for butter tea in Tibet were evolving simultaneously with teapots of China, eventually settling on a pitcher-like shape.^[12]

Europe

Victorian Era teapots

The Yixing teapots came to Europe with the tea and became known as boccarro ("large mouth" in Portuguese).

When European potteries in Holland, Germany, and England began to make their own tea wares they at first imitated the Chinese bocarro designs.[12] Many English potteries, however, decided not to risk money on the new material, and continued the manufacturing of earthenware and stoneware pots; the famed creamware services made in Staffordshire reached popularity in the second half of the 18th century.^[16]

At the turn of 18th century, design and decoration of the European teapot started to deviate from the Chinese tradition, with the pear shape, or pyriform being the first major novation. An early English pyriform teapot dates back to 1690, the shape became widespread at the time of Queen Anne and remains in vogue since then. The other popular shapes in the 18th century were "globular" (sphere-like vessel on a raised foot) and a vase (or urn, Louis XV style), with the latter being a rare comeback to the wine-pot origins of a teapot.^[17]

In the last half of the 18th century, English factories introduced the matched sets of teaware. The original demand for "China" porcelain tea sets was eventually replaced, at least among the wealthy, with enthusiasm for silver pieces that were extensively produced by the end of the reign of George III. This period also saw a reduction in the price of tea, so teapots became larger.^[18] Also, cheaper pewter sets were made for the less-affluent, mostly as simplified copies of the silver pieces.^[19]

America

In colonial America,

Ability of a teapot to keep heat depends on the material, for example, stoneware is supposed to keep the heat better than porcelain.^[21]

To keep teapots hot after tea is first brewed, English households since 18th century employed the tea cosy, a padded fabric covering, much like a hat, that slips over the tea pot. The tea cosy got very popular in the 20th century as a practical and decorative object in the kitchen.^[22]

Features

Teapots evolved from the designs where the lid was resting in a recess of the body of the vessel to the lid sitting on top of the body, and then to the modern design with the deep flanges of the lid preventing it from falling out.^[19]

When the tea is being poured out, outside air needs to enter the body of the teapot; therefore design involves either a loosely fitting lid or a vent hole at the top of the pot, usually in the lid.^[19]

The built-in

The first automated electric teapot was invented in 1909.[25]

Materials

The typical materials used for teapots have been stoneware (Yixing), porcelain, silver and gold. ^[21]

Making teapots from silver has a major disadvantage: the thermal conductivity of silver is the highest of any metal. Therefore the handles of antique silver teapots were often made of wood (often apple-wood or pear-wood) or ivory.^[26][27] If the handles were made from silver, they would be attached to the body of the pot with thermally-insulating plugs, usually made from ivory. Without such features, the teapot would be uncomfortable or painful to pick-up when filled with hot tea.^[28]

Teapots made of

One phenomenon that occurs with some teapots is that of dribbling where the flow runs down the outside of the spout particularly as the flow starts or stops. Different explanations for this phenomenon have been proposed at various times. Making the external surface of the spout more hydrophobic, and reducing the radius of curvature of the inside of the tip so that the flow detaches cleanly can avoid dribbling.^[32]

Chocolate teapot

A chocolate teapot is an analogy for any useless item; a teapot made from chocolate would melt, and be impossible to use.

Experimental researchers in 2001 did indeed fail to successfully use a chocolate teapot they had made.^[33] Later research, however, by The Naked Scientists in 2008, showed that such a teapot could be used to make tea, provided that the walls of the teapot were more than one centimetre thick.^[34]

In non-teamaking contexts

A teapot has a rather distinctive shape, and its fame may sometimes have little to do with its primary function.

• The
  Hello, World for its popularity. It is included as a graphics primitive in many graphics packages, including AutoCAD, POV-Ray, OpenGL, Direct3D, and 3ds Max
  .
• Russell's teapot is an analogy, devised by Bertrand Russell, which attacks the unfalsifiability of religious claims, comparing them to the eponymous teapot. The concept in turn inspired the title of the 1973 album Flying Teapot by the Franco-British rock band Gong.
• The teapot has been featured in the American children's song from 1939, "I'm a Little Teapot".
• In Korea, the teapot is commonly used as a serving container for various types of wines.
• Part of the
  constellation of Sagittarius contains an asterism
  (or a star pattern not officially recognized as a constellation) that famously resembles a teapot.
• The 'Teapot Game' is a word game described by Mary White's Book of Games, and involves guessing a word which is replaced by "teapot" in various sentences.[35]
• The Teapot is a tale by Hans Christian Andersen.

In architecture

• In 2004, a Malaysian cult called the Sky Kingdom constructed a 35 foot tall, cream colored teapot, with an unusually long spout, higher than the pot itself on its property as part of its own private symbolism^[36] which included a similarly large blue vase next to the teapot. As part of a crackdown on the sect in August 2005, bulldozers and heavy machinery were sent in to tear down the structure.
• The (purported) world's largest architectural teapot is to be found in West Virginia. In 1938 The Chester teapot was constructed by William "Babe" Devon. The Teapot started its life as a gigantic wooden hogshead barrel for a Hires Root Beer advertising campaign. Devon purchased the barrel in Pennsylvania and had it shipped to Chester, WV where it was set up at the junction of State Route 2 and U.S. Route 30. A spout and handle were added at this time and the wooden barrel was covered with tin to form the teapot's shape. A large glass ball was placed on top to make the knob of the "lid". The Teapot stood in front of Devon's pottery outlet store. Local teenagers were hired to run a concession and souvenir stand which was set up inside the Teapot.
• The Teapot Dome Service Station is located in Zillah, Washington. It was built in 1922, and the 15-foot handled-and-spouted gas station was designed as a visual pun referencing the then-current Teapot Dome scandal. It has been moved multiple times and is no longer an active gas station.^[37]

See also

• Brown Betty, a type of British teapot made from a red clay, known for being rotund and glazed with brown manganese
• Briq, a teapot and pitcher traditionally used by Lebanese and Syrian Arabs
• Cube teapot, a ruggedized teapot invented for use on ships
• ISO 3103, a description of a standardised method of brewing tea from the International Organization for Standardization
• I'm a Little Teapot, a children's song
• I'm a teapot
  , HTTP error 418
• Kettle, types of vessels specialized for boiling and pouring plain water, often metal, also with a spout, sometimes electric
• Tetsubin, Japanese cast iron pot with a spout
• Kyūsu, a Japanese ceramic teapot, often with a side handle
• Samovar, a heated metal container traditionally used to boil water for tea in and around Russia, as well as in other Slavic nations, Iran and Turkey
• nuclear test explosions conducted at the Nevada Test Site
  in the first half of 1955
• Pot-holder
• Slop bowl part of a tea set - a bowl to empty tea cups of cooled tea and dregs before refilling with fresh tea
• Sparta Teapot Museum, formerly in Sparta, North Carolina, USA
• Teacup, a small cup with or without a handle, from which to drink tea
• Tealight, a small candle originally used to keep a teapot warm
• Tea set, a usually matching set of dishes including a teapot, small pitcher for milk and sugar bowl, for serving tea in a formal manner
• Teaware – Traditional equipment for drinking tea in some cultures
• Teapot Rock, a rock formation in Wyoming
• Utah teapot, a 3D model of a teapot frequently used as a reference object in computer graphics
• Yixing clay teapot, a special Chinese clay teapot
• The pot calling the kettle black, idiom

References