Antique and Vintage Tea Caddies

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Whether they were made of porcelain or pewter, exotic woods or sterling silver, tea caddies protected what were once the world's most valuable leaves. In the West, the practice of storing tea in caddies paralleled the rise in popularity of the...
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Whether they were made of porcelain or pewter, exotic woods or sterling silver, tea caddies protected what were once the world's most valuable leaves. In the West, the practice of storing tea in caddies paralleled the rise in popularity of the beverage during the 17th century. Like the tea, many of these caddies were produced in China for export. Most were made of porcelain and were either decorated and glazed in China or shipped as unadorned blanks. By the 18th century, tea was sweeping Europe as a more sober alternative to alcohol, the consumption of which was at odds with the growing industrialization of society. In most cases, the same colonial companies that were exporting goods from Asia, the Dutch East India Company and the British East India Company, were also designing the tea caddies for their markets back home. By the end of the century, though, as restrictions on exported goods from China increased, potteries in Staffordshire, England, and the Netherlands city of Delft turned their attention to tea caddies. Because tea was a precious commodity, many wooden caddies were fitted with locks, lest the hired help pilfer the precious leaf. These caddies were also lined with lead, which strikes modern readers as crazy but was used before its dangers were well understood; the toxic element sealed the caddy and kept their fragrant contents fresh. By the 19th century, as manufacturing breakthroughs permitted the easy and inexpensive manipulation of metal, tea caddies were increasingly made of tin. The rise in silverplating technologies naturally led to silverplate tea caddies, too, although many were made of sterling. Sterling silver was also a popular material for the scoop used to transfer spoonfuls of loose tea into awaiting teapots.

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