This little teapot sits tucked into a corner of my kitchen counter, always ready, willing and able to brew just the right amount of tea to get my day started. It takes a level teaspoon if the the tea leaves are 'fines'...a heaping spoonful if it's whole leaf. I usually steep it much longer than advised...I like it strong, and a tea cosy keeps it piping hot.
Many of you will recognize it as Muchelney Pottery piece. I bought it about 20 years ago and think that I paid about 38 pounds for it. That's about $60 bucks these days. I never did know if it was made by Johnny or Nick, and I long ago decided that I didn't care. They are both brilliant makers and their partnership over many decades is admirable. Johnny and I were both teaboys at Winchcombe when we got our start, and his pottery in Somerset is a beautiful reflection of that grand old pottery.
It's GIO (glazed inside only) with a beautifully flashed surface from the wood firing. It's a very different form than my own aesthetic...a low slung body and a flat lid with no catch...but, it's small scale negates the need for a more sophisticated lid and I like how the line from the low belly follows through the spout. It is stained with years of use and brings me daily comfort.
365 days in year
x
20 - years in use
=
7,300 days
x
1 Pot of tea per day =
7,300 pots of tea total.
Cost of teapot = 38 British pounds sterling divided by 7,300 cups of tea = 0.0052 British pounds per serving. (That's less than one U.S penny)
Final analysis - Excellent value for the money
Next up: The price of all the tea in China.
6 comments:
Lovely pot, clearly from Muchelney. Always loved their toasty firings. I've seen some of the flooding pictures from Muchelney. Horrifying.
I've thought and re-thought teapots several times over the years. One of my "re-thought" moments was having tea served to me by Cary Hulin our of a pot not dissimilar to the one you have pictured.
There was a rightness to the size and an elegance to the simplicity of function.
It made me rethink just how much pretentiousness I was adding to my own teapots in order to get them seen.
I was dealing with the economy of marketing, not using, teapots. And I realized that for better or worse, I was stuck (for now) in a different economy of teapots.
dang auto-correct. "our" is "out".
Beautiful little pot.
Brilliant math, and the cost of the teapot goes down every day that it is used. Think about what the cost will be in a few generations.
It's a beautiful pot! I love tea :)
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