In regard to the coffee-pot, there is an example of the date of 1686,
now on view at the London Museum from the collection of Mr. H. D.
Ellis. It will be seen that the coffee-pot was always tall; it never
lessened its height to become possessed of the pear or gourd-shaped or
circular body of its rival. It actually influenced the height and
form of the teapot and it was not until the end of the first quarter of
the eighteenth century that the teapot threw off its similitude to the
coffee-pot in regard to height; and from that date when tea-drinking
had become established, it pursued its own way in design.
The chocolate-pot followed in the wake of the coffee-pot and has
never departed very materially from its early form. It is always
rather smaller than its prototype, and may be distinguished from
the coffee-pot by the handle, which in the chocolate-pot is not set
opposite the spout, as is the case in the teapot and the coffee-pot,
but is in the middle, set at right-angles to the spout.
It is necessary to examine the customs of the period to arrive at
conclusions in regard to silver. In 1697 the Earl of Bristol notes in
his diary the payment “of a bill in full to Mr. Chambers for tea-kettle
and lamp, weight ninety oz. eleven dwts., at six shillings and two
pence.” These tea-kettles were probably no new thing, and, as coffee
came first, were possibly a continuation of similar forms for the
decoction of coffee. They were the forerunners of the tea-urns which
became popular a century later (see illustration p. 325). Tea and
coffee and chocolate, ale and broth, and possibly canary, were all
drunk by different classes of the community at the same time. Before
the introduction of the eighteenth-century teacups--first from Holland
and the East and later from our own porcelain factories, in the first
stages without handles--the new beverage, especially in remote and
unfashionable districts, was drunk from the silver porringers then in
use. At the date of the _Tatler_ the middle classes in the country were
still content with milk, water-porridge, broth, ale, or small beer
for breakfast. The family of John Wesley drank small beer at every
meal. By the third quarter of the eighteenth century Jonas Hanway, who
introduced the umbrella to England, and John Wesley, both declaimed in
vain against the prevalent tea-drinking. Just as in earlier days London
apprentices were to have meat in lieu of salmon, then plentiful in the
Thames, so country maids accepting service in London stipulated that
they were to have tea twice a day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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