Tea and Goodwill

How often do I drink tea? Every damn day. How often do I use a teapot? Like, never. My fascination with teapots is this sort of guilty obsession, because I own three or four, and don't ever use them. But seriously, they're adorable!

I've wanted one like this for quite a while. Until this set turned up at Goodwill, I figured I'd have to wait until somebody gave me a gift certificate to some Shmantzy Tea Shoppe or something, because a pot alone will usually retail for over 25 bucks, which I think is way too much to ask for a thing that I don't need, and has absolutely nothing  unique about it. I paid $3.99 for the teapot and 99 cents for the teacup.

So what did I get for my five bucks? The teapot is heat resistant. I could actually heat it on the stove, if I wanted to. It even has the little squiggly piece of wire with it to put between the pot and the burner so it doesn't shatter. It has a glass diffuser insert. This is way cool, because even high-end brands like Bodum come with plastic ones which will stain over time. I've actually passed up one or two Bodum brand pots at Goodwill, for that reason- they look pretty gnarly with the diffuser thing all gunked up. The spout is surprisingly well designed. I thought it looked really ungraceful, as though it had been cut off at the wrong angle and they'd just said the hell with it, and packed it up anyway, but in fact it is about the only teapot I've ever used that is perfectly dripless. It doesn't drool on itself! How neato is that?! The teacup wasn't born with the pot, but I'm pretty sure it's made of pyrex. It has a little anchor mark in the bottom that I think is a trademark for the Anchor Hocking company.


I  also got another handful of vintage sewing patterns, which I should really really quit buying, but the envelope illustrations are so hard not love.