I'm a little teapot, short and stout

Jan 20, 2007

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During the birthday weekend visit of the Beans it became apparent that we are deficient in a most Unbritish (is Unbritish a proper noun?) way.

It will shock you, dear reader, to learn that we are without a teapot. It is hard to impart the character of the expressions of politely restrained horror and dismay on the faces of the Big Beans when they learned of our shortcoming.

In mitigation, I would point out that I don’t drink tea, except when coffee is not on offer. I make a point of not going places where coffee is not on offer. So the real culprit is Jax. As usual.

Anyway, faced with the imminently threatened return of the Beans, we are moved to rectify this most severe social shortcoming by the purchase of a teapot.

The thing is, what should we buy? I quite fancied one of these , but Jax said “No”, in a tone suggesting the matter was not open for discussion.

How big should one’s pot be? 2 cups, 4 cups or more? What are the best pots? Should we get silver? Or glass? Or china? Or plain ordinary pottery? Would one of these fit the bill? Or one of these?

Or, in the certain knowledge of the target audience’s (Beans) tastes, should we splash out and get one of these?

It’s where it is

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Comments

21 responses to “I'm a little teapot, short and stout”

Sarah, Dino and Mimi
20 January 2007
I’d go for one of these: http://www.denby.co.uk/productdetails.aspx?ProductId=25055
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Tim
20 January 2007
Denby is nice, but that isn’t teapot shaped. This is a proper teapot. 🙂 Am I right in thinking Denby would be good, because the three tons of clay would insulate the tea?
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Sarah
20 January 2007
I hate teapots. imo they are an unnecessary extra step in the making to drinking process, and I actually prefer the taste (and temperature!) of tea made in a cup. Because however much you warm the pot the tea is always cooler out of a pot than straight from the kettle.
Teapots also take up unnecessary space in the cupboard, where you could keep any number of things which are more useful.
What’s more is that teapots are a pain to wash up, I hate having to fish cold teabags out of cold tea to do it, it makes far more sense to take the teabag out of the mug at the time of making!
Unless of course you were planning to be even more british and start using tea leaves instead of teabags, although then you’d need a strainer as well as a pot 😉
(still not to be recommended, the amount of times I’ve poured tea from a pot into a mug and only *then* remembered that I needed the strainer, grrr! I rest my case.)
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Jax
20 January 2007
giggle.
It was just last weekend that it became a bit of a farce using individual teabags for some several cups of tea at a time. It occurred to me then that a teapot might be a step forward. Jan has a particularly lovely tea cosy for hers as well – another crafting opportunity 🙂
We already have a tea strainer, how could I possibly be without such an essential camping item? Although I think it’s in the shed with the rest of the camping gear 😆
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Nic
20 January 2007
I have a teapot. I also have a chicken shaped knitted tea cosy which was a comedy present from a friend I asked to knit me one (her being a handy crafty type and all). I got through phases of using it but really as I drink tea out of such a big mug that my pot only does two cups though. I’d love a BIG teapot actually but it would have to be proper teapot shaped and maybe brown just like the one Auntie Mabel has. 🙂
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t-bird
20 January 2007
Love the macintosh one, would almost buy one like that for myslef if anyone here actually drank tea! I do have to agree with Nic though, a brown one, just like Auntie Mabel’s (without the palava of tracking across the Potteries to get it obviously!) is just the job.
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Roslyn
20 January 2007
Nic, you have just described the perfect pot!
I have a tea pot and as the only tea I really drink is chinese, I also have a strainer. Actually I have three teapots! One started out as the plain white one linked in the post but I decided to paint it and is now pink with hearts 🙂
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Clare
20 January 2007
ROFL – we also have no teapot and for the same reason as Sarah – tea is nicer and hotter (and larger in volume!) made straight in the mug! The reason I really am laughing though, is because just before I got married we went to visit my grandparents (v. old fashioned proper 50s family). My grandma made the tea and I offered to help, although I said ‘I won’t do the pouring as it will probably taste horrid to you being as I don’t know how to make tea in a teapot properly!’ – she was aghast, and replied ‘you can’t get married if you don’t yet know how to make tea in a teapot!’ LOL. Another time when I said I didn’t know how to darn, she said ‘you don’t know how to darn??? what on earth do you do when Sven gets holes in his socks???’ – I refrained from replying ‘either throw them away, or if he really wants them darned, he can do it!’. I love her to bits, but she really has trouble relating to our bizarre modern ways!
Cx
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Tim
20 January 2007
So, a Brown Betty is a proper teapot? Looks like it is made in Stoke, but exported in bulk for the delectation of American Anglophiles.
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HelenHaricot
21 January 2007
we have a nice white teapot form m and S, and a large tepot [steel] and an extra large christmas teapot [think industrial catering!]
i think you can overthink these purchases Tim!!!
I would go for cheap
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HelenHaricot
21 January 2007
oh, and well remembered tim, they were our wedding theme!
but I would still go for the white one.
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Alison
21 January 2007
I’ve got a plain Denby ‘White’ one that only does about 3 and a bit mugs’ worth, but is good for me to have two from at breakfast, and a little spotty one that does just the one, but is pink and pretty (but doesn’t get used much – it was one of those that is designed for one person and sits on a matching tea cup, like http://www.enjoyingtea.com/bltewicup1.html but not that – though that means the tea cup is shallow and surface area of the exposed tea is huge and it gets cold really quickly – one to look nice on a shelf). (What to you mean, over think Helen?!?! :lol:)
I do actually prefer the taste of tea from a pot, and every time I use one I think I should do it more often. I’d like a big one too for when there are 4 or more people to provide tea for.
Hate novelty pots and stainless steel ones.
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Alison
21 January 2007
I had a friend who promised to buy me a teapot when I got married. Then he changed it to buying us *both* teapots when we got divorced 😉
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Daddybean
21 January 2007
Well, for those who such as Sarah and Clare who think tea is better made in a mug, well obviously there is no hope 😉 Sorry, but tea needs time to brew to develop a good flavour – a tea bag dunked in mug of hot water, for some miniscule amount of time, gives you a cup of hot brown liquid tasting sort of tea-ish, but that’s not the same as a decent mug of Proper Tea 🙂 (how do you get more Clare? – a mug is a mug however you fill it) And yep, leaves do make better cup I reckon, though decent teabags are ok – it’s what we use most of the time. Anyway, that’s off the point of discussion. (Though I have noticed some teabags make a very poor pot of tea unless you use extra bags – I suspect they have been ‘optimized’ for dunking. )
As to the teapot. Well I do like the aesthetics of a china/earthenware teapot, though i’m unconvinced they make better pot of tea than a metal teapot. But the main disadvantage is that they break sooner or later. And most seem poorly designed – esp. the spout – I think the end isn’t usually shaped properly and the material too thick, so you get lots of dribbles (surely the fluid dynmics of a teapot spout should have been sorted by now….) Our M&S china pot (which now has broken handle on the lid…) was pretty good – then again it was more epenisve than intended as it was mistaken for one that was on special offer…)
But I reckon the best teapot so far is the current one, which is a stainless steel one . It has a proper spout shaped spout – it doesn’t really drip, it has a pierced plate inside at the entrance to the spout, to catch lots of the leaves if you use loose tea (depending on the tea leaf type/size). It has nice shaped hollow handle that doesn’t get too hot and is nice to hold. No idea of the make – it’s got no markings, but it loooks like this (except for the handle shape):
https://www.kingsofhagley.co.uk/Product.asp?ProductID=283&main=Tea%20and%20Coffee&sub=Stellar%20Teaware
The handle is more likemthe one on the Bellux ones on this page:
http://www.cookmatesouthwest.co.uk/acatalog/Teapots.html
Though I like the look of the ‘royal’ ones on that page.
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Clare
21 January 2007
Well yeah, Daddybean, you *can* fill a mug from a teapot, but who does? Everyone I knows only gives you measly little teacups if they use a teapot and lovely great big mugs if they make it straight in the mug. Oh, and you can leave a teabag in a mug if you want to…I like my tea strong and manage to get it that way without a tea pot 😉
Cx
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Barbara
21 January 2007
I *always* serve tea in big mugs from a tea-pot. (I can get four mugs out of mine.) And a decent tea cosy will keep it warm for ages. (I love mine… bit of a comedy one knitted by my MIL with bees and flowers all over it.) My thing is that I don’t like it too strong, but a quick dunk in a cup tastes like dishwater. I use 2 bags in my pot and will get through the lot before it gets too cold to drink and with just two it never over-brews. If I left a bag in a mug to brew then you have a very short window in which to drink the drink. But usually what happens is you end up sticking it in the microwave to re-heat (and subsequently re-cool… ad infintum). Yuk.
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DaddyBean
21 January 2007
Well, we pour tea into mugs (including some rather nice very big ones that Helen bought recently), my mum pours into mugs, as does, my MIL, various other sundry people i know, in fact pretty much most people I can think about off the top of my head. In fact quick confer here with the SOTP crew is that everyone they know does as well. and yes, that making it in mug is an abomination 😉
You must know a very select group of cup users Clare 🙂
That said, I reckon some tea is better out of proper china cup – a nice Darjeeling say, or Jasmine tea etc.
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Alison
21 January 2007
Yep, teapot to mug. And it tastes better out of nice mugs too. 🙂
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jan
21 January 2007
Actually, Jan has two tea cosies but until now there has never been a reason to ask you if you would like one of them.
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Clare
22 January 2007
Well, as Tim says, I am an impatient Philistine – I like my tea like a builder – hot, strong and sweet – and I just can’t manage to make it like that in a pot, no matter how hard I try. And I don’t seem to know anyone who uses mugs with a teapot – more’s the pity – will be making friends with Barbara and the Beans so that I can sample mug/teapot tea at some point! 😉
Clare
x
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Em
22 January 2007
I have this teapot that I got when I was going through a cat type phase in order to shut up my (now ex)MIL with the “what do you want for christmas” question. So I managed to aquire a reasonable collection of Dubout plates and cups and bigbig mugs and a teapot. It does only just 4 mugs.
Tea is much nicer from a pot.
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