I’ve run across a lot of tea gadgets over the years, but I’d like to think that I haven’t become jaded just yet. This theory was confirmed recently when I saw an article about a rather unique gizmo. It’s a chocolate teapot. To clarify exactly what that means, it’s a teapot that’s actually made of chocolate – and it apparently works.

I’m not sure why we need this or if the public has been clamoring for it (I doubt it), but it was devised by researchers at the Nestlé Product Technology Centre in England. The pot was made of dark chocolate and, as this article notes, is apparently capable of holding boiling water long enough to prepare a cup of tea. Which is great if you like chocolate flavored tea.

We’ve written about Tregothnan Estate many times now. They’re the United Kingdom’s only native tea producer of any significance, and they will soon be providing tea for First Great Western’s trains in the UK. Which will make them Tregothnan’s top customer and contribute to the company’s rapid growth, which is estimated to hit 60 percent this year.

Now we turn to some offbeat research, specifically a study related to green tea and canine periodontal disease. It’s called The Effect of Green Tea Bag in Dogs With Periodontal Disease and the translation from the Chinese is a little bit clunky but it’s interesting nonetheless. The experiments were carried out on 11 beagles, five of whom served as a control group while the rest had their teeth rinsed with green tea. The results, according to the study abstract, “show that the green tea bag is effective for periodontal disease.”

We close things out today with an eye-catching piece of teaware called a Tea Ball Glass Mug. It’s nothing fancy but, if you’re a fan of sleek, slightly futuristic tea gear, then this one might work for you. The non-glass bits of it are made of silicone and it comes complete with a matching tea ball, if you’re a fan of that sort of thing, and a saucer.

See more of William I. Lengeman’s articles here.

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