How big is my tea pot?

Sorry, but my input scanner just quit. What shape is your pot?

Capacity will depend on the shape of the pot, thickness of the walls, position of the spout, and who's making it in which pottery on Thursday.

Why not order by the outside dimensions and be surprised at what you end up with on the inside?

What capacity do you get when it's filled 1/4" to 1/2" below the brim (allowing for the lid to be seated w/o touching the liquid)? How close to spilling out is the liquid in the spout at that level? If you can't walk across a room with it that high w/o sloshing liquid out the spout, decrease the contents and check again.

Determine the size of your teapot filled to the brim minus a touch in oz or ml. That's the capacity sold in stores. I use pots that fill

1/2-3/4 of capacity because of weight or convenience for pouring. You'll find pot size is a function of personal consumption. I use a one liter pot that brews 700ml which is two 350ml (~12oz) cups. I usually have too nuke the second cup when I get around too it.

Jim

Gregory Allen-Anders> This probably sounds really silly, but I want to get a second tea pot,

drinking

It is quite stout. wider than it is tall. The spout is level with the top of the pot.

Well if its close to what I have now, I don't have a problem with some variation. I just don't want to order one that is way to small or too big, I know I could send it back if its the wrong size, but I'd rather get it right the first time.

The more that I think about this, the more I wonder why not simply order a pot with the capacity that you'd like it to have? I'm not being facetious; it's just that I can't tell what the capacity of one pot has to do with a prospective purchase of another. If you use and like your current pot as a

4-cupper (24 oz), then why not look for that capacity in a new pot? Buy the capacity that you need/want and don't worry about how high you're supposed to fill a pot because it really all just depends. For example, I have a pot that is 32 oz when filled all the way up. Because of the sloshing spout issue, that's not practical and 30 oz would be more reasonable providing I tread very carefully.

However, the box says the capacity is .6 liter, 20 oz., and at that point, it looks like it's only 1/2 full.

I generally use it as a 24 oz pot.

HTH.

That would make it a six cup which is what I thought it probably was but wasn't sure. I then had the bright idea of measuring how much my 'two cup' brown betty held. Unfortunately two cups yielded a teapot that was about 3/4 full and didn't do much to enlighten me (four cups in the other pot gave a pot that was about 2/3 full 6 cups pretty much to the brim).

When I make tea for just me (which is the majority of the time) I fill it about half full and get two mugs of tea out of it. Since I use a tea basket this has a water level high enough to make sure the tea steeps well, thats pretty much what I'm aiming for. I'm afraid if I get one too big then my two mugs worth won't get the water level high enough to steep well. Too small and I won't be able to accomodate my occassional guests.

Anyway, thanks to both of you!

What a PITA these inconsistant teapots are.

Ah, mystery solved...sounds like you'll be wanting to buy a 6-cupper to cope w/company.

You're welcome! Please let us know which new pot you buy.