Librairie

Librairie

Mote Spoon & Tea Strainer

A reader's comment about teapot spouts got me to thinking how one could clean tea leaves out of the spout. Voilà! Enter the mote [as in speck] spoon, a pierced bowl, long pointed handled spoon that not only removes stray leaves in the cup of tea, but can also clear a clog of leaves in a narrow spout. It will be replaced by Victorian tea strainers used to pour through and with its own little cup stand to keep a tea table or tray tidy.

Pouring pot spouts and bills …

[Johnson Bros Old Staffordshire Rosedawn pots]

When choosing 18thC accoutrements, consider what the liquid to be poured is before choosing your pots. Cream or chocolat chaud would make a mess to clean and remove if left to congeal in long spouts, hence we usually choose sparrow-billed pouring spouts as seen in Liotard's Still Life: Tea Set, 1782, in which we see a long spouted teapot as well as a covered sparrow-billed cream jug.


Multi-use covered sparrow-billed pouring pots are found in both faïence blanche and brun. The removal of the cover allows the use of a molenillo or moulinet to stir chocolat, the use of the cover helps to keep the contents hot.


[Details from Liotard, blanche, and Chardin, brun.]

Current offerings on ebay.

This post links to The Scoop 195

How not to use a tea bag …

In view of the information contained in this article on the dangerous pesticides and dangerous ingredients of the tea bags themselves, I highly recommend Adagio Tea's ingenuitea tea maker.