teapots

this town is teapot deficient.

For a city with as much diversity as Montreal, it is remarkable what a homogeneity it is displaying on the teapot front. Currently there seem to be only three models of teapot on wide release:

1) the white 1-2 cup ceramic teapot. This model will nicely compliment our white flatware and serving platters. It will also not clash with the white (accented with red/blue/black) mugs. Sometimes this model has a bamboo like handle in an effort to relieve its crushing monotony of white and infuse it with a psudo asian sentiment. Now, I have a white teapot. And white dishware. But my teapot is in the shape of an elephant and I had the dishes well before the "boutique hotel" look came into vougue for apartment living. And they are from the dollar store. Buying a $32 teapot that could easily camoflague itself in an arctic lanscape is absurd.

2) the $6 china town teapot. the main attraction of this genre of teapot is its price and the fact that it is usually decorated by some nice painting of bamboo fronds. (fronds? stalks? branches? What is the correct bamboo terminology?) However, if one is seduced by the price and pretty design, it bears remembering that it was probably painted in some dodgy teapot-painting-factory in the nether regions of china, and that it is inevitably designed badly. The tops fall off while pouring, it is prone to cracking, it pours badly. And really, no matter how much money you save on a cheap teapot, if it pours badly it will drive you insane. Trust me. I applied thrift to the purchase of a kettle that pours water anywhere but into the apropriate recepticle and every time I use it I get a step closer to the straight jacket and pureed food.

3) the cast iron japanese teapot. This type of teapot is not a bad option as long as you are the type of person who will pay 75 dollars for what is, essentially, a nicely forged teapot in miniature. Truely beautiful, these teapots are perfect for people who not only know how to make proper Japanese tea but who also don't mind drinking said tea in thimbles. Firmly Anglo-Saxon, I distrust a teapot that doesn't make enough tea to fill one of my white dollar store mugs. There is no way that I will be hosting a tea ceremony any time soon; my flower arranging skills have been likened to that of a caffinated octopus with ADD, and I don't have enough egg cups.

the search continues...