#tea caddy

Tea caddies and sugar box case, 1739-40, London, England.

--- Type: Tea and Coffee service Designer/Manufacturer: Meissen Manufactory [X] Region: Germany Time period: 1730-1735

Hand-painted porcelain featuring embossed scroll and scallop design.

~ Sterling Silver Tea Caddy ~

From the Met Museum

Octagonal tea caddy veneered with mother of pearl with incised decoration and metal fittings, 1780-1800

A couple of recent finds. This chinese tea caddy came with the residue of some kind of black tea in it; unidentifiable to me. I could tell it probably wasn't Assam or Yorkshire Gold, anyway. What I was very interested to see was that the inside had been fully coated with a thin layer of wax. Not beeswax, I don't think. Seems more like some kind of vegetable wax. This is a first for me, but I'm not up on my Chinese tea culture so maybe that is a common thing but of course, Google is next to useless. I don't think the box is terribly old - 50's at best, but if anyone knows, I'd be interested to hear. The tiny spoon (mushroom spoon!!!) came from a Garden Place where they had a number of these lovely little hand-whittled scoops on offer. Given it was under a fiver, I couldn't resist.