Teapots

Do any of you collect teapots? I love drinking tea poured from a teapot.

I don't but my mom has some from Japan and her kitchen is teapot themed

I love and collect the pastel colored teapots from the 30s-40s. But my day to day teapot is great big and plain white.

We have several which we prize for their lovely design and ornamental value, though we don't actually use them, for fear of the possibly toxic glazes.

I do not have any fancy teapots, but I have been tempted. However, I use a different pot for each kind of tea. For example, a little aluminum teapot from Bombay used by street merchants that I use for Darjeeling.

I use thermoses for all my tea brewing, because they keep the tea hot longer. Don't own any proper china teapots because they'd just be dust collectors, and I've got no shortage of those already :)

I collect even collect teapots that are not for drinking purposes: candles, glass, tiles, magnets, and paper towel holder My favorite is a teapot-shaped miniature cookbook magnet filled with recipes of goodies to serve with your tea.

I just found this group but will be reading more of the threads. Looks like fun.

I have several ceramic or porcelain teapots just because I like the look of them. The one I used most was a small one I got in England, with an infuser basket (or whatever those things are called). A few years ago, my sister gave me a cast iron one, and now that is the one I use most often, absolutely love it.

A friend collects them; it's quite a space-eating hobby! Myself, I only have about half-a-dozen, but I confess to collecting images of teapots and teacups quite energetically. If people would like to peruse them, I can post a link to my Pinterest board.

I don't really collect teapots because I don't have enough space, but I love to collect different types of mugs/cups (Star Trek, Star Wars, Antique...yeah).

I just have two teapots- one wolf-themed one that I made, and my $10 white teapot that I use everyday.

>9 staffordcastle: Please post your link, I'd love to see them!

I have three teapots, and I rotate through using them about equally. One's quite large - maybe 36oz. The other two are smaller - one's Japanese and the other is Lenox china. I'm always tempted by nice teapots, but talk myself out of getting them so that I don't clutter up my small kitchen too much.

Hi, indigosky

Here's the link:
http://www.pinterest.com/staffordcastle/lheure-du-th%C3%A9/

Sorry it took me a while to notice your request!

>13 staffordcastle: Going now to enjoy you page.

Here are mine (I limit most of my boards to 200 posts):
http://www.pinterest.com/2wondery/tea/
http://www.pinterest.com/2wondery/tea2/

Thanks, 2wonderY - I will peruse them this weekend!

Hi. I'm new here. I have a few tea pots but I make tea in my Brown Betty. Here is a picture. Does anyone else have a Brown Betty?

http://www.englishteastore.com/teapots/brown-betty-teapot-6-cup.html

I have two! A big one and a little one-person pot.

Just made mine in my 6 cup Brown Betty. Otherwise I have a Japanese teapot.

Now that I have real brewing water at the cabin, I needed a proper teapot. Teapots are easy to find here in Kentucky, and cheaply, at the various antiques malls. I’ve bought several for my daughter, as she is very hard on crockery.

But I decided to bring the prized possession and use it daily rather than for only company.
This is an upright glazed earthenware pot with roses painted on it. It looks very rustic and old Europe, perhaps German or Scandinavian. It has the cleverest locking lid I’ve ever seen – it actually guarantees the lid stays in place.

This is the story behind the pot. I literally saw it at a yard sale from a block and a half away. My consciousness zoomed in on it as if the pot was calling to me. I hurriedly found a parking spot and rushed to it. It wasn’t expensive, perhaps $5, but the clincher was when I brought it over to pay the lady holding the yard sale. She said “This was my grandmother’s.” I might have made a weak attempt to tell her she should keep it, but I think the teapot and I both knew that she wasn’t worthy. I truly hope she hasn’t regretted selling it.

2wonderY Love your tea pot story. Your tea pot has truly found it's proper home. Enjoy - I bet Grandma would be happy to know it was
being loved again.

I have a modernistic glass teapot, but I rarely use it. I make tea in a French press that exactly fills my tea mug.

We went to Cadbury World, Bournville yesterday, where you could buy teapots such as those pictured here. Altogether now, "As much use as a ..."

And of course someone tested that and wrote a report:
http://www.plokta.com/plokta/issue23/teapot.htm

>23 bnielsen: a good scientist takes nothing for granted ;)

I hope the testers had a more reliable pot for a decent cup of tea after that rather spectacularly undrinkable one.

The BBC revisited the problem as recently as last year, enlisting Nestle's expertise.

The secret, as I suspected, was using DARK chocolate with 65% Cocoa solids. It's the dark matter that counts.

Love it!

>26 2wonderY: Oh,! That's a cute one!

The technology of the perfect pot:

https://www.teaguardian.com/tea-hows/teaware-teapot/

I have always sensed that there must be a perfect teapot. This article helps to define it.

This is the closest I've found to a perfect teapot.



The Curve Teapot from For Life

I have more cups than teapots, from them being passed down from previous grandmothers, but I have a few personal sized pots on hand, in part because I like to have tea parties with little pots for tea "sampling." Most are purely for function.

I have a brown ceramic pot that replaced my blue one that had the spout broken off (the cozy is around here somewhere).

My favourite is this little steel guy with a handle that doesn't' connect on the bottom of the pot so I don't burn my fingers when I'm pouring it (picked it up at a Murchie's).

My mom got me this little white oval shaped pot that has a design painted that looks like something from the 20s, and the lit knob is in the shape of a little hat. Not a fan of the design, but I like the hat.

I also have two Yixing pots that I bought at a local tea store. Clay pots, one pig and one horse, which I only use for Genmaicha and Buckingham Palace Earl Grey, respectively.

I have one full sized pot, a pink think my mother bought in Germany so she had a tea set of some kind. It is larger on the top than the bottom, and came as part of a sort of square shaped set of China. I'm going to guess she got it sometime in the 1960s-70s.

My Pig and my horse!



They don't work as well as they could. The horsey mouth is a little sloppy to pour with, and the pig gets little tea sticks up his nose if you don't use a bag.

Non-teaists think that because I am one, I like foofy decorative teapots. They don't pour worth a hang. My real teapots are strictly utilitarian in shape and personality, the favorite being a 2-quart Brown Betty that looks like something Old Mother Hubbard used to brew for her brood.

>33 gmathis: Right! Functionality is paramount. But that doesn't keep me from acquiring more. My children have a beloved and battered dragon teapot that was reserved for birthday parties.

Daughter bought me a glass Primula pot several years ago and I promptly broke the strainer insert. So when I got an email ad for $2 sale, I begged for a new one for Mother's Day. It's tiny, but oh so cute. And their flowering tea balls are beautiful. (They caught her on the shipping charges - $17!!!!)

>33 gmathis: I like to collect the pretty ones for show. Use is entirely different. The For Life pots are my favorite, but I have a few brown betties, too.

>35 tealadytoo:

tealadytoo, when I see your user name I actually always thinks of teapots. When I was growing up, tea ladies were people who served tea in cafes (especially greasy spoon transport caffs), offices, schools, hospitals, events, etc, and always hefted a huge two-handed teapot which could be constantly topped up from a boiling urn until it became necessary to throw out the dregs and brew a fresh pot. Often she would be pushing a trolley with all the tea paraphernalia on it.

This picture gives a sense of the old teapots that tea ladies used, although it looks smaller and cleaner than most of the ones I remember!

>36 John5918: That, indeed, is a teapot that clearly does what it is intended to do. As a favorite coworker often says, "it ain't the show ponies that get the job done."

My foofy ones double as vases...a little ceramic pot full of zinnias just makes me happy.

>36 John5918: I like it. Manning a tea trolley would be a much less stressful than my real job. :=)

This is the one I use at the office:



And I learned a new term. Moriage. "Highly stylized flowers, variations of pastel colors, gilding or gold paint, and applied slip decorations are all characteristics of moriage pieces. The moriage style indicates that the piece referenced the late 19th century interest in Japonisme."

It's not quite large enough to hold the full amount from the kettle, so I add the rest after pouring my first mug.
There are several other failed vessels that decorate a shelf in my cubby. There were leaks and spout mishaps. One, a lovely teal green, had it's glaze crack from the heat. Rather than precipitate a teapot disaster, it has been retired.

I collect lovely teapots and tea cups. But I don't drink from the pretty ones, as they are often impractical. They are mostly décor.

For everyday, I sometimes use a Brown Betty, but I really favor the Curve from ForLife. Closest thing to dripless I've ever found. Not unattractive, but I don't really care what my working tea pots look like, since I will bundle them up in cozies anyway. This is the Curve.

Well, a comment from John prompted me to post a photo of my teapot, described up in >19 2wonderY:.

Pretty!

>42 tardis: Agreed. And it looks like it does the job well. Non tea-ists have given me cutesie teapots over the years that are all flash and no substance.

>41 2wonderY:

Looks sturdy!

>43 gmathis: Non tea-ists have given me cutesie teapots over the years that are all flash and no substance

My biggest bugbear is teapots that may look wonderful but won't pour without dripping or spilling. There is a whole range of stainless steel teapots, still commonly used in cafes, hotels and B&Bs, which fall into that category. Indeed British comedian Ben Elton included these teapots as one of the proofs that there must be a government Ministry of Crap Design dedicated to designing things which don't work, as there is no other way that such a defective piece of kit could have been invented.

>44 John5918: I have been cleaning out the china cabinet and divesting myself of anything that won't pour or insulate.

I can see it’s time to take some pictures. Teapots are a decorative element in my house. And I keep supplies for mini tea parties for the grands. I’ve got multiple single serve pots so they can each do their own “spilling” which is what they used to call pouring.

I love solid pastel colored crockery. I collect bowls as well. Here are most of my teapots:
https://www.instagram.com/p/C2kao63uuXX/?igsh=cHhmYmwwcWszbnlx

The dollhouse also has a shelf of teapots in 1:12 scale.

I got to meet my dad’s cousin a few years ago. It was an aha moment when I walked into her house. That’s where I inherit my sensibilities! Her house was full of books, art, bits of nature and a kitchen collection of tea kettles.

>47 2wonderY: I love the little pottery olive green one!

>48 gmathis: The bunny or the one with enamel and gold decoration?

I also posted the lid detail of my every day pot:
https://www.instagram.com/p/C2kl6nwxy-g/?igsh=MmE1MjBjZWk4cDFk

4th slide in, the one on the left without ornamentation.

Looking back over this it appears I did have a "Brown Betty," that being the pot I replaced my old blue one with. Alas, that pot has also had problems. I poured boiling water on it while cleaning it and cracked the glaze. It functions, but I'm still annoyed about it.

My go-to now is this little sort of Chinese style (I think) teal pot with gold flowers that my bother had, with a straw or bamboo wrapped handle that swings over the top rather than off the side. I know that my mom and aunt both worked in Vancouver's China Town for a time, so I suspect she picked it up there at some point. (I remember as a kid finding things like fancy chopsticks in the cupboard and such and no idea where they came from -or what they were sometimes- until my aunt told me about it. I'd have been maybe 1 and a half at the time.)

I've been harassing every one I know to try some less common green teas lately when it occurred to me there must be a tea group on LT.

I accidentally started collecting teapots, though I've just gotten rid of five of them (my personal price for buying this little siphon pour beauty - video taken at night so colors aren't quite accurate):


I only use it for greens and oolongs. I sit and make a point to use it every day while reading or having lunch, because it just brings me such joy. The bonus is that my niece and nephew are very impressed by it.

I have four others I kept:


I love that white elephant, but it does drip disgracefully.

I also have this, which is technically a drip coffee pot, but I just enjoyed the silhouette with the filter part on top. I love the pattern (Mount Vernon by Harmony House, produced 1941-1959), and have a teacup, saucer, salad plate, and dessert plate in the pattern as well (I have a fairly large collection of single teacups and saucers). I do like having the option of a really large pot for tea if there are guests. It probably holds twice as much as the white elephant.

>52 mabith: **Swoon**. That Mount Vernon pot is lovely!

I’m trying to dig out from a major moving boxes dump in my basement. As I make progress, more pottery pieces appear. Teapots and pitchers and bowls.
I will try to take more pictures soon.

I had a pottery disaster perhaps two decades ago. My collection was on shelves near where I was doing a carpentry project. Too much hammering caused pieces to smash to the floor. I’ve been in compensation mode ever since.

>52 mabith: Beautiful! The little red-and-white pot next to your elephant caught my eye as well.