I learn something new every day. It seems the British military coined a phrase, “useless as a chocolate teapot,” to describe an inept or clumsy person or a pointless thing. But now someone’s done something to make that insult obsolete.
According to The Telegraph, Master chocolatier John Costello and his team from the Nestle Product Technology Centre (PTC), in York, England, have made a working chocolate teapot.
The process is somewhat laborious, and seems to involve a combination of commercial kitchen utensils and homemade hacks, but it does result in a teapot made of chocolate. It even has a lovely pattern embossed into it.
Of course they put it to the ultimate test: brewing tea in it. (Although my mother would be disappointed in their process. No initial pour-swish-drain to warm the pot. And they poured the water first, then put in the tea bags.)
The resulting brew looked a bit thin to me, but the scientist drinking it pronounced it: “Tea… a little sort of hint of chocolate. It’s quite nice actually. I quite like it with a bit of chocolate in it.”
I think I might like it too, since I’ve been drinking tea and eating chocolate since before I could talk. But I can’t see myself doing all the work involved in making a chocolate teapot — just pouring and finishing one pot takes a skilled chocolatier 2-3 hours, and that doesn’t include making the mold.
But those balloon experiments they did might work as teacups…
