Teapot Parade

Since I've been using my teapots one by one, I thought I'd share them.

I already shared the Alice in Wonderland my friend gave me for Christmas.


This nice little rice-porcelain teapot was a present from my mother decades ago, some time before I was married. I do remember that she bought it in the Michigan State University museum gift store, and it will have been twenty years since I graduated this June.

It's a graceful little pot, and it's also a TARDIS teapot that holds more than you'd think. It came with a set of handle-less teacups, but it will fill a 10-ounce mug twice.

My cobalt-blue pot is a lot darker of a blue than the flash made it look. It was a Christmas gift about fifteen or sixteen years ago from my husband's mother. I love the cobalt-blue color. Unfortunately this pot is a bit of a dribbler, but I use it anyway because I like to admire it sitting on the stove. And it does hold a lot.


Williams-Sonoma used to sell this blue and white porcelain pot. My mother's mother gave it to me as a gift one Christmas. It's an amazingly huge pot, although you can't really tell that from the picture, and holds nearly a quart of water or some ridiculous swimming-pool amount. However, my husband likes to drink his tea by the cappucino-mug full, so we use it quite a lot.

This orange lustreware teapot, made by the Takito company (don't I just love the internet??) is the teapot I have had the longest and probably used the least. My father's mother gave it to me when I was just out of high school, along with the entire tea set: sugar, creamer, tea cups and saucers, and plates.

Her father bought it for her in Chicago when she was a girl, but she said, "I was never really a 'tea party' kind of a girl". From the maker's mark on the bottom, this pot was made in the late 1920's to the early 1930's. The interior glaze has a beautiful soap-bubble iridescence, and the porcelain is thin enough that you can see the darkness of your fingers on the outside when you look into it.

Oops! I almost forgot this teapot, which was sitting on the stove with the teaball in it. Ironically, this is the only teapot I have ever bought for myself.

Typical of my treasure-hunting habits, I got it for fifty cents at an estate sale. Although the blue and white lid looks like it fits, it seems to be from a different teapot. I looked all over the house hoping to find the matching blue and white pot, but finally yielded to this little pot's lonesome whimper, paid my two quarters, and took it home.

The teaball is full of "Orange Spice Imperial", from Upton Tea Imports. I have ordered tea from Upton for the last twelve years or so, and been very happy with the teas I've tried. I particularly like being able to sample any tea in their catalog for $1!