Italian Wrought-Iron Coffee Roaster
Courtesy of Edison Monthly

"The tea pot, coffee pot and chocolate pot first used in England closely resembled each other in form", says Charles James Jackson in his Illustrated History of English Plate, "each being circular in plan, tapering towards the top, and having its handle fixed at a right angle with the spout."

Tea Pot, 1670

Coffee Pot, 1681

Coffee Pot, 1689

Seventeenth-Century Tea Pots and Coffee Pots

He says further:

The earliest examples were of oriental ware and the form of these was adopted by the English plate workers as a model for others of silver. It apparently was not until after both tea and coffee had been used for several years in this country [England] that the tea pot was made proportionately less in height and greater in diameter than the coffee pot. This distinction, which was probably due to copying the forms of Chinese porcelain tea pots, was afterwards maintained, and to the present day the difference between the tea pot and the coffee pot continued to be mainly one of height.

The coffee pot illustrated (1681) formerly belonged to the East India Company, and is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is almost identical with a tea pot (1670) in the same museum, except that its straight spout is fixed nearer to the base, as is its leather-covered handle, which, with the sockets into which it fits, forms a long recurving scroll fixed opposite to and in line with the spout. Its cover, which is hinged to the upper handle socket, is high like that of the 1670 tea-pot; but instead of the straight outline of that cover, this is slightly waved and surmounted by a somewhat flat button-shaped knob. Engraved on the body is a shield of arms, a chevron between three crosses fleury, surrounded by tied feathers. The inscription is, "The Guift of Richard Sterne Eq to ye Honorable East India Compa."

This pot is nine and three-quarters inches in height by four and seven-eighths inches in diameter at the base; it bears the London hall-marks of 1681–82 and the maker's mark "G.G." in a shaped shield, thought by Jackson to be George Garthorne's mark.

The 1689 coffee pot illustrated is the property of King George V. It bears the London hall-marks of 1689–90, and the mark of Francis Garthorne. Its tall, round body tapers toward the top, and has applied moldings on the base and rim. Its spout is straight and tapers upward to the level of the rim of the pot. Its handle is of ebony, crescent-shaped, and riveted into two sockets fixed at a right angle with the spout. The lid is a high cone surmounted by a small vase-shaped finial, and is hinged to the upper socket of the handle. On no part of the pot is there any ornamentation other than the royal cipher of King William III and Queen Mary, which is engraved on the reverse side of the body. This example, which measures nine inches in height to the top of its cover, resembles very closely in form the East India Company's tea-pot just referred to; but as teapots with much lower bodies appear to have come into fashion before 1689, this pot was probably used as a coffee pot from the first.

The 1692 coffee pot of lantern shape is the property of H.D. Ellis, and has its spout curved upward at the top, being furnished with a small, hinged flap and a scroll-shaped thumb-piece attached to the rim of the cover. The body and cover were originally quite plain, the embossing and chasing with symmetrical rococo decoration being added later, probably about 1740. Jackson says the wooden handle is not the original one, which was probably C-shaped. The pot bears the usual London hall-marks for the year 1692 and the maker's mark is "G G" upon a shaped shield, a mark recorded upon the copper plate belonging to the Goldsmiths' company, which Mr. Cripps thinks was that of George Garthorne. The characteristics of this lantern shaped coffee pot are: