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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Well, yours is prettier than the ones Anu linked to; that head one creeped me out.
How in the world did anyone ever think up something like this? I also thought it was interesting that Anu credited it to an earl (didn't you all just love his use of early?) as the owner, but the links credited it to the missus.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
It took me a while to figure out how the teapot worked. The hole in the bottom must connect only to a tube running through the handle. With the teapot upside down it could be filled with no escape from the spout. When turned back up again, tea could not escape from hole in the bottom, because the handle tube is arched high enough that tea could not re-enter it. I suspect though that it might have been tricky to prevent spill in the filling process when first turned upright again. And the traditional tea ritual would not have been possible.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
and the tea would be stewed forever, without recourse to freshening.
and it would be hot-handled.
and it would be clumsily heavier than functionally required.
and it would STILL bloody drip!
Apart from that, another triumph of upper-crust British lunacy - expensive to make, ugly to look at, functionally debased... so ending up highly collectible :)
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 428
addict
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addict
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 428 |
The hole in the bottom must connect only to a tube running through the handle. With the teapot upside down it could be filled with no escape from the spout.A sort of a Klein teapot? (explained at http://www.math.rochester.edu/misc/klein-bottle.html, nice photos of actual Klein bottles at http://www.kleinbottle.com -- a commercial site I have no connection to) I assumed that the hole in the bottom was just connected to a long tube that ended near the top of the pot. It would have to be filled at an angle, or a pretty large amount would slosh out when it was turned, but I can envision doing it. Assuming the tea is prepared apart from those to whom it is being served, a little sloshing presents no etiquette problems, but your solution would work much better (aside from the problems Mav mentions).
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
That cadogan with the human face on the side
would not likely have been suitable for use. The description says it was slip cast. This means that a plaster of Paris mould has a very thick suspension of clay in water poured into it, allowed to stand a short period of time.The plaster of Paris takes enough water out of the supension in contact to increase its viscosity enough that it will be able to keep the shape of the mould when the mould is tipped upside down to pour the still semiliquid
clay suspension out.
That handle is so narrow in cross-section that the tube it contains would be very narrow, and the handle as a whole
quite fragile.
I have done enough slip casting to be quite sure of this.
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692
Pooh-Bah
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OP
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
I once was able to handle one of these pots at a small museum in a Staffordshire pottery and see its use demonstrated. That particular pot was made as Flatlander described, with a tube running vertically up from the bottom, narrowing towards the top. The base of the spout was close to the bottom of the pot. The pot was turned upside down and liquid was poured into the tube, filling the whole pot and the tube up to a mark scratched on the inside of the tube, presumably calculated to avoid getting liquid into the spout or above the top of the tube once the pot was righted. As you turned the pot up the right way the liquid left in the tube dribbled out. There was not much mess, perhaps because the vacuum formed as the pot was righted held back the flow of liquid to a trickle. I think wwh's idea of a tube running up the handle would have been even less messy and perhaps some were made in that way; in my youth, many teapots had handles too hot to hold (try a silver teapot as an example!), so I don't think that would have been seen as a big disadvantage - anyway, what were servants for?
To me the strangest thing about the whole idea is that as there was no way of inserting tea leaves into the Cadogan pot, or extracting them afterwards, the tea would have had to be brewed in a separate pot and then poured into the Cadogan – you might as well have poured the tea in through the spout! By the time it was served to eager drinkers it would have been pretty cold. The usual recommendation when making tea is to rinse the pot with hot water to warm it before making the tea. I guess you could do that with the Cadogan, but probably it was just intended to be a drawing room demonstration of a simple but intriguing scientific principle rather than a serious teapot!
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
After thinking about it some more, I can now see idea of tube running through the handle was wrong.The bottom of the pot could have been an upside down funnel, with straight tube extending almost to the top. The funnel could have been slip cast separately, and then put in place with glaze to seal the joint on firing. It would have been impossible to wash inside adequately, so residues could spoil flavor. Yuk.
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
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Another collectible that is as rare as you'd think is the Medieval dribble cup. If you knew where to put your finger and/or tongue on the little hole(s) to create a vacuum inside you could drink safely. Your guests however wouldn't know the trick.
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Joined: Mar 2002
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Pooh-Bah
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OP
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,692 |
Just the thing for one of Betty's garden parties!
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