THE TEAPOT, THE COFFEE-POT, THE TEA-KETTLE, THE TEA-CADDY
The teapot, its early form—The seventeenth century—The eighteenth-century coffee-pot—The tea-kettle and stand—Late Georgian teapots and coffee-pots—The tea-caddy and its varieties.
The silver plate of a country undoubtedly reflects the manners and customs of its users. The growth of luxury undoubtedly has had its influence upon the manufacture of a great number of silver articles employed in everyday use. But although the field be larger, the class of articles, to say nothing of the average artistic quality, differs in the same measure as the habits of the users. The antiquary of the twenty-first century who turns to the late nineteenth century will find marmalade-pots and pickle-forks in lieu of posset-pots and punch-ladles. He will find that cheap chemists have disseminated hair-brushes and cheap scent-bottles of inferior glass with silver rims.
The earliest known teapot is of the year 1670, although Pepys tells of drinking tea in 1660. This fine specimen is a lantern-shaped teapot with a history, and is illustrated [page 243]. It is inscribed, “This Silver tea Pott was presented to ye Comttee of ye East India Company by ye Right Honole George Lord Berkeley of Berkeley Castle. A member of that Honourable and worthy Society and A true Hearty Louer of them. 1670.” It is engraved with the arms of the donor and of the East India Company. The maker’s mark is T. L., and the date letter and hall-marks of London are of the year 1670.
In the year 1690 the form of teapot was melon-shaped, still tall, and still suggestive of a coffee-pot, made more manifest by the stopper attached at the spout by a chain. But in the eighteenth century, teapots underwent a change; they began to assume styles which have endured to the present day. Since Queen Anne sat in the Orangery in Kensington Gardens with her bosom friend “Mrs. Freeman” over a dish of tea to hear of Marlborough’s victories, the habit has become established in popular favour.
The rivalry between coffee and tea and the attempt of chocolate to obtain supremacy are interesting side-lights in social history, tinctured by political bias and prejudice. Coffee claims the field first. The honour of introducing tea remains between the English and the Dutch, while that of coffee rests between the English and the French. The price of tea in 1660 was sixty shillings per pound, and Thomas Garway, tobacconist and coffee-man, was the first who retailed tea. His shop bill is the most curious and historical account of tea we have:
“Tea in England hath been sold in the leaf for six pounds, and sometimes for ten pounds the pound weight, and in respect of its former scarceness and dearness it hath been only used as a regalia in high treatments and entertainments, and presents made thereof to princes and grandees till the year 1657. The said Garway did purchase a quantity thereof, the first publicly sold the said tea in leaf or drink, made according to the directions of the most knowing merchants into those Eastern countries. On the knowledge of the said Garway’s continued care and industry in obtaining the best tea, and making drink thereof, very many noblemen, physicians, merchants, etc., have resort to his house to drink the drink thereof. He sells tea from 16s. to 50s. a pound.”
COFFEE-POT. 1737.