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Silver Plate Gifts Eder Kings Castle
   
It is interesting to note how tradition has influenced design in the tea service.
The coffee pot is taller than the teapot. The reason behind this is that the coffee pot was derived from the early English tankard. The old pewter or silver tankard, which was found in most middle-class and better homes, was often of several quart capacity and was not necessarily reserved for a single person’s use. In most modest homes a single tankard served all the men at the table.
When coffee was first introduced into England by the traders returning from Central and South America, there was no vessel in the home from which it could normally be served. It was therefore served from a tankard, but it is easy to understand how this made for difficulty pouring.
The first converted tankards had a round pipe inserted into a hole low in the tankard body which was bent up in an "S" shape on what we would consider the near side for a right handed person.
This was fine for a right handed person, but if you were left handed, it’s easy to understand how you had to pour backwards. For this reason, the spout was moved around opposite the handle, and this became the first coffee pot.
Unlike the coffee pot, the average teapot was based on "ball shaped" teapots which were brought back from India and China by the early traders such as Marco Polo and those who followed him.
Many a crusader brought back tea after his years in the East and, of course, a china pot in which to brew it.
The first silver teapots were fashioned after these low round china pots.
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