Ceramic tea pots are as individual as people themselves and they have a unique decorative design all their own. Also, collectors who build collections of tea pots have discovered that their identifying mark is located on the bottom of the tea pot itself, which lets the collector know who created the tea pot.



People collect tea pots due to the beauty that collectors have found in them. Tea pots have stood as a sentimental piece in many households where families focus their lives around ceremonial teas, daily. Tea pots have craftsmanship that is unlike other objects, which make them distinctive, but collectors need to know that there have been many copies that have been made from originals.

Tea pots from China have a more characteristic uniqueness about them with the lid of the tea top containing a design of the head of a dragon, which is featured on many Chinese art forms. The lids on these tea pots do not come off of the actual tea pot, because they are designed to bob up and down.

With the aid of marine archeology, several antique teapots have been discovered from shipwrecks that occurred all the way back during the fourteenth century. These tea pots have been documented as shipwreck ceramics, which will cause no doubt to their authenticity. These types of tea pots bring with them extra historical and additional archaeological value that cannot be found in other tea pots. Of course, these tea pots will definitely show signs of wear, which can be attributed to their time spent in the sea.

Original tea pots were a western innovation, but the origin is completely unknown. Researchers suspect that vessels or containers that were originally used for serving wine or coffee were used to serve tea at one point and thus the invention of the tea pot.

Traditionally, coffee pots were tall and lean while the tea pot had a more global shape, but there is no practical reasoning for their distinctive shapes. In fact, the first recorded silver tea pot does resemble a traditional coffee pot. Several individuals of that time did not favor the silver tea pot, so the red stoneware tea pots from China soon became available all over the world.

Early shapes of the tea pot were the popular global shape, which contained the short straight spout. As the years passed, so did the shapes which included the octagon and the melon shape. These both were popular. There have been tea pots that have been created with two chambers, which was known as a double tea pot. The eighteenth century Chinese porcelain tea pots were in an octagon pattern and the were produced by silversmiths for the first two decades. The Europeans attempted to compete with the tea pots produced in China, but they lacked the translucency and the fineness that the Chinese tea pots contained.

The first tea pots created in Europe had a heavy cast with a short spout that was replaceable, which were unlike the first tea pots produced in China. Through the years, a type of fantasy tea pot began being produced that included tea pots that were designed as plants, rabbits, frogs, camels, and various other animals. The fantasy tea pots were of poor quality because of the workmanship and the clay used and were ultimately viewed as failures.

Designs of the tea pots began to fall into four main areas which included mock ups of earlier oriental designs, designs that came from early European prints, armorials that bore a coat of arms, and innovative tea pots that had a spout on the interior.