teapot

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The "Gong Chun teapot" ( Chinese   供 春 壶 ), one of the oldest known teapots in the world, a replica of Gu Jingzhou . The original is in the Beijing Palace Museum .

The teapot is a bulbous, rarely also cylindrical vessel made of silver , brass , copper , iron , stoneware , porcelain or glass in which tea can be prepared, kept warm, transported and served. The teapot differs from a coffee pot in three special features:

  • It is about as wide as it is high or even wider than it is high. In this way, the colors and aromas that escape from the infused tea leaves and have a tendency to remain on the bottom are distributed more evenly over the entire water than with a slim jug.
  • The spout of the teapot is much deeper, often even at the bottom of the teapot body, so that the colorants and aromas concentrated in the lower part of the teapot can be poured into the drinking vessel first. (The spout is attached to the top of the coffee pot so that any coffee grounds do not get into the cup.)
  • There is usually a built-in device that holds back the brewed tea leaves when pouring. These can be sieve holes in the transition from the can body to the spout or a conical filter insert that is hung from above into the can and extends to the bottom of the can.
Japanese teapot of the yokode-kyūsu type
Fürstenberg teapot, 1999
Ceramic teapot, around 1980

While the first documented mention of tea in China in the year 221 v. Chr. Dated (Teesteuerbescheid), diving specifically for tea pots made of red Zǐshā tone of the South China region to Yixing until the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) on. The usual way of preparing tea by foaming green powder tea directly in the drinking bowl gave way to brewing the leaves in a teapot. In the culture of the late Ming dynasty and the subsequent Qing dynasty , enjoying exquisite teas together, which were prepared in high-quality pots, played a central role as a symbol of social status and high culture. Scholars and nobles worked closely with potters, calligraphers and visual artists to create the most unique vessels possible.

Chinese tea was first imported to Europe by the Dutch East India Company in the early 17th century . A teapot was first documented in 1620 in the inventory list of a Portuguese trader from Macau. The cargo of a ship sunk in the South China Sea in 1643 contained around 23,000 porcelain objects, including 255 teapots. The shape and color of the ceramic objects identify them as Chinese export porcelain for Europe. The first teapots preserved in Europe date from the late 17th century. One of the earliest known images of a jug made of red Yixing clay, the material and shape of which clearly speaks for its use as a teapot, can be found on several paintings by Pieter Gerritsz. van Roestraeten (1627-1698). Towards the end of the 1670s, European ceramists such as Arij de Milde in Delft , John and David Elers in Staffordshire, England, and Johann Friedrich Böttger in Meissen at the beginning of the 18th century , began making teapots based on Chinese models.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, England developed a pear-shaped teapot with an S-shaped curved spout, which was introduced to Morocco by the English along with green tea and whose shape has been the model for most teapots in tea culture in north-west Africa to this day .

As a serving vessel, teapots are naturally the focus of a table and are often the flagship of the respective design in tableware series . They come in a wide variety of colors, shapes and sizes, purely factual and functional or figuratively kitsch with all the variations in between. Teapots are also collector's items and are exhibited in relevant museums.

See also

Web links

Commons : Teapots  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Xiutang Xu, Gu Shan: 500 Years of Yixing Purple Clay Art . Shanghai lexicographical Publishing House, Shanghai 2009, p. 100 . , quoted from Chunmei Li: Crafting Modern China: the Revival of Yixing Pottery. MA thesis . Ed .: OCAD University . 2013, p. 9 ( ocadu.ca [PDF; accessed January 27, 2018]).
  2. ^ Fei Wu: Yixing Zisha pottery: Place, cultural identity, and the impacts of modernity. MA thesis . Ed .: Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta. 2015, p. 27 ( ualberta.ca [PDF; accessed on January 26, 2018]).
  3. ^ Shirley Maloney Mueller: 17th Century Chinese Export Teapots: Imagination and Diversity . In: Orientations 36 (7) . 2005.
  4. ↑ John A. Burrisson: Global clay: Themes in World ceramic traditions . Indiana University Press, 2017, ISBN 978-0-253-03189-1 , pp. 80 .
  5. ^ Raoul Verbist: A Teapot of 18th Century. Association of Small Collectors of Antique Silver, 2004.