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Teapot Mystique
Teapots are mysteriously captivating. No one knows why teapots hold our interest like they do. The same is not true of coffee pots, chocolate pots, kettles, urns, pitchers and other vessels which play cousin to the teapot. If you go on an Internet excursion scouting for books on the subject, you’ll find considerably more books on teapots than on coffee pots. Likewise, you’ll find more teapot themed products for sale than coffee pot themed products. You can find all sorts of household items, like clocks and picture frames styled after teapots and many items that retain their traditional design but are embellished with a teapot theme, such as stationery and bookmarks, etc.
For a more entertaining dramatization of how excited people get about teapots, watch them survey a teapot collection. If you show someone a coffeepot collection they may show interest, but show them a teapot collection and they will positively coo at it. Their eyes eagerly search over the teapots for details that make each one special.
Teapots don’t gurgle like coffee percolators, nor whistle like kettles, yet in their silence they say much. Large teapots speak of companionship, and small teapots of solitude. The grandeur of a large teapot with fancy handle, spout and feet, and an ornately colored pattern with elegantly appointed gold trim bespeaks Victorian splendor, holding the viewer in aesthetic arrest. Finally the spell is broken when the onlooker glimpses the beautiful simplicity of a small solid white teapot positioned next to it for contrast. Its diminutiveness speaks of humility, its color of virtue, its style of purpose enunciated by graceful curves illustrating a single-pose-pantomime of inner peace. A true masterpiece of expression, this teapot paradoxically has the demeanor of a good listener.
Although the large Victorian teapot speaks of companionship while the small white teapot speaks of solitude, the two have something very important in common: both create unity. The Victorian teapot unites friends at a gathering, while the small white teapot unites the tea drinker with himself during a stolen moment in a busy day. This may be a key to the mystery behind why we love teapots so: because they create a connectedness which engenders harmony. They are the inaudible voice of reason telling us to slow down, to have a friend takes time. They are the silent plea of life begging us to befriend ourselves, contemplate mysteries, muse, reflect, and reboot.
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