Storia delle cose,Marrakech,Morocco

#33 - La sintesi finale

Conclusion

When travelling through this blog, I have learned a lot about the teapot , this essential household item used to serve guests as a part of a cherished ritual. Indeed, the Moroccan tea is prepared in the kitchen and then presented to the visitors in the dinning room. Despites its small size, this vessel is rich in meanings , actions, and concepts. It includes many fields and has shaped the life of nations and men. Starting with the definition of the object, its taxonomy and anatomy, I continued with the historical evolution of the material used. The teapot is an ancient object and the oldest surviving Chinese teapot found in Flagstaff House Museum of Teaware dates back to 1513.Throughout the course of history it has undergone various changes and known many innovations. In fact, science has struggled for centuries to enhance the design and the production process to avoid problems related to the use of such item, subsequently , it has led to very sophisticated versions like the electrical kettle or The sorapot of Joey Roth which were patented along the history of innovation and technology.

In addition to the practical use, the teapot was a source of inspiration for the creation of brands like the English Twinning, or 3D computer graphics design like The Newell teapot and has played a critical role also in the humanistic field, as in literature , in music and children's songs , like the very famous rhymes ''I'm little teapot'' and ''Polly put the kettle on'', in films , proverbs ,comics, and art especially in museums.Furthermore, It is used as an illustration in worldwide stamps and is associated with numbers. The teapot has a great symbolic significance as an online shopping icon for teapot accessories(mugs and trays) or a tourism advertising poster especially for my city, Marrakech, reputed for its handicrafts and myths as witnessed by the abundant literature and citations.

In conclusion, I hope that this blog contributed to expand the knowledge on some aspects of the teapot and that this will interest my readers and will be a good motivation for further research.

#24 - La La cosa nel cinema

The Tea at the Bottom of the Teapot

The Director:Lou Maho

Producers:Eddy Matalon and Marc Olivier Louveau

Published by Ojai Film Festival on August 31,2019

link1:The film

#20 I brevetti della cosa

1- The Ornamental design of a kettle

The inventor: Heida L. Thurlow

Current assignee: Lentrade D/b/a Chantal Cookware Corp Lentrade Inc ,USD796246S1,United States

The date of the patent: September 5 2017

2- The Universal lid system and methods

The inventors: Jill Portman Gary Shinner

Current Assignee Peet's Coffee Inc,US9826849B2,United states

The date of the patent :November 28 2017

link1: The patent of the ornamental design of the kettle

link2: The Patent of the lid system

#27 - Il museo della cosa

The Island Teapot Museum

Located in the middle of Kent in England, this museum opened in 2002 and currently count around 7100 teapots which are exposed in small rooms according to shapes, colours, topics or countries. The 15000£ permanent exhibition of the owner Mrs Blazye entered the Guinness world record in 2004 for being the largest collection in the world but in 2011 it was considered as the second biggest collection in the world as a man in China gathered 30000 teapots. The collection of Mrs Blazye include teapots in the shape of everyone like Princess Diana and Winston Churchill .

The teapots are classified according to subjects such as science-fiction ,politics, sport, transport, celebrities, music and animals .
For instance in the picture above the first row of the shelves contain teapots made by the famous English potter Lorna Baily, the second include some historical buildings, the third show some teapots with american flag quilt patterns and the fourth contain teapots with tropical features.

The shelves in this picture are predominated by flower motifs while the picture below emphasises farm animals teapots.

link1:Geoff Tiballs,''The world's 100 weirdest museums'',London, Robinson 2016,Chapter:Teapot island, Yalding, Kent

link2:Wikipedia
link3:The source of the pictures

#18 - In cucina

Teapot in the culinary world

The Moroccan tea recipe

I was inspired by the previous blogs of 2014 and I thought an authentic way to connect the teapot to the culinary world would be to present the recipe of the Moroccan tea. The typical Moroccan tea serving is made with a (Berrad) Moroccan teapot, an ornate tray, and tea glasses and one important step within the preparation method is that Moroccan teapots should be placed directly over the fire.

Add the green tea in you Berrad (Moroccan teapot)
Boil the water
Add ¼ cup of the boiled water to tea to clean it and throw the dark water away
Fill the Berrad with the boiled water.
Lower the heat and boil off the tea
After turning off the heat, add fresh mint and sugar and leave it for 3 minutes .
Poor up the tea in glasses.

An interesting culinary book: ''The Culinary tea, more than 150 recipes''

Always talking about recipes, when browsing the internet I found a culinary book that exposes around 150 popular recipes with all the ingredients and tips on how to prepare different types of tea.

link1:The source of the picture and the recipe

link2: Cynthia Gold and Lise Stern, ''Culinary tea, more than 150 recipes'' Uk, Hachette,UK,2010.

#25 - La cosa a casa

Teapots at home

Like many cultures, teapot is an important item in the Moroccan culture. Whether taking a cup of tea in the morning or having friends for afternoon tea, the teapot is crucial for all these uses. Serving guests using the teapot is a cherished ritual and tea is prepared in the kitchen and then presented to the visitors in the dinning room. Therefore the kitchen and the dinning room are the places where teapots are usually used.

In addition to their function for brewing tea , the ornate pots are used as a pieces of art and are kept in dinning rooms and traditional salons for decoration purposes.

link1:The teapot in the kitchen
link2:The teapot as piece of art

#30 -La scienza e la tecnica della cosa

Have you ever wondered about the ''Teapot effect''?

When searching for a possible relation between teapots and science, I found an interesting paper dealing with the problem of dribbling teapots. In fact, everyone has experienced the annoying overflowing from the pot spout especially when the tea is poured slowly. Therefore I summarized the main points of this article and I also attached the link to download the full paper.
For centuries scientists have struggled to explain the ''teapot phenomenon''.Some suggested internal vortices in the fluid, others opted for atmospheric pressure as the main factor while other explanations based on the momentum of the fluid tried to find the perfect speed of the flow to avoid the dribbling.
A team of fluid dynamics scientists, C. Duez, C. Ybert, C. Clanet, and L. Bocquet, from the University of Lyon in France have addressed this issue by explaining the main factor of overflowing: a "hydro-capillary" effect that sticks the liquid to the solid surface as it is poured from the spout. The experts emphasised that to avoid this problem one way is to design the lip of the spout very sharp and coat the lip with superphobic materials to repel water from the spout. I reported below some pictures to explain the experiment :

In (a) when water leaves the spout of an (hydrophilic) teapot, the streamline bends and causes the dribbling , and this is worst at a slower flow rate(a').However, when using a superhydrophobic coating the streamline is straight and the dribbling problem is avoided at different flow rates b and b' .

link1:''Beating the teapot effect'',Cyril Duezy, Christophe Yberty, Christophe Clanetz, Lyderic Bocquety ,Universite de Lyon ,2009

link2:The source of the picture

#16 - Una prima mappa concettuale

A conceptual map

#19 La cosa nell'Arte

''The Crab teapot'' pottery sculpture

Teapots have inspired for centuries artworks in all fields including sculpture and oil painting.
Mitchell Crafton is a contemporary artist who is the author of many creature teapots and one of these artworks is ''The blue crab teapot''. This piece is 2.54 cm wide and 18 cm tall and the legs are made of metal .

The author: Mitchell Grafton

The location: Panama City, Florida,

''Still life ,with teapot, cup and fruit'' painting

Another important field predominated by teapots is painting. ''Still life ,with teapot, cup and fruit'' is the achievement of the French Post-Impressionist painter Emile Bernard in 1890 who had artistic friendship with Van Gog . This artwork is currently in Van Gog Museum in Amsterdam.

The author :Emile Bernard

The location: Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam

link1:The carb teapot sculpture
link2:Émile Bernard , ''Still life with teapot, cup and fruit'', 1890

#26 - La cosa sui francobolli

Teapots on stamps

Teapots are a popular topic for stamps and this is enjoyable way to learn about cultures and origins of objects because each of the teapots has its name as well as the country of origin on the stamp. Although I found normal that the majority of teapots stamps came from China, I was struck by the sheer number of worldwide stamps available.

link1:The source of pictures

#28 - Il protagonista della cosa

Tokoname Master craftsman : Hokujo Genji Shimuzu

Hokujo Shimizu is one of the most brilliant teapots maker in the state of Tokoname in Japan. His talent won him the title of '' Tokoname Master Craftsman'' in 1991 as well as many awards such as: "Japan Traditional Crafts Art Exhibition''. I attached below one of his favourite teapots.

In the video below , one can watch Shimizu Genji making the Kysu(the Japanese teapot), in his studio in Tokoname.

link1:Tokoname Master Craftsman making Kysu(Japanese tepaot)
link2:Hokujo profile

#21 - La cosa nella Musica

The teapot in Music

When looking for teapots in the musical world, I found that they were mainly the subject of popular nursery rhymes and traditional poems for children dating back to the nineteenth century. I have chosen '' I am little teapot'' and '' Polly put the kettle on''

'' I'm a little teapot''

''Polly put the kettle on''

link1:I'm little teapot'',Song and Lyrics
link2:Gus Williams ''Popular songs'', teapots
link3:Polly put the kettle on
link4''Polly put the kettle on '' Lyrics

#32 - Le azioni della cosa / con la cosa

The actions of /with the teapot

To boil:

(To boil water in a teapot)

   To brew:
                                         ( To brew a tea in a teapot)


   To contain:
   (The teapot contains tea)

   To dribble:
(the teapot dribbles)


To drip:
(The teapot drips)

To hold:
   (The teapot holds 4 cups of tea)

   To pour:
   ( The teapot pours tea)

To scream:
   (The teapot screams)

   To steep:
(To steep tea leaves in a teapot)

   To sweat:
(The teapot sweats drops)


   To whistle:
   (The teapot whistles)

#29 - I numeri della cosa

The numbers of the teapot

Most of the numbers associated to teapots I found in the web are lot numbers which are an identification assigned to manufactured single pieces. For example, these two Chinese Yixing teapots have each a lot number respectively 1078 and 1434.