Red excitedness characteristics:
- falling over. Think or how the USS enterprise wobbles and throws the crew from side to side when attacked by the klingons or travelling through an asteroid belt.
- dribbling. Pouring tea becomes particularly tricky leaving drips all over the place.
- Perpetual waffling. A striking lack of precision in speach and writing rather like rambing only not in the countryside but in words and really not worthy of reading. Editor skills are desperately needed during a red alert to head-off the waffle effect.
- tears before bedtime. Over spilt tea, bruised knees, being misunderstood etc
Why now?
Only 4 weeks before my Greek sailing holiday! I’ve made the lists & purchased the essentials. From here-on in its all about getting over-excited.
The giving and receiving of a tea pot as a gift is a complex, controversial, activity with plenty of room for getting it wrong and causing offense. I hope this little post will help you avoid any unsightly teapot gifting disasters. 
Before buying a person a teapot find out:
- what teas they like to drink and serve. Buy the right pot for their prefered tea type.
- what pots they already have. Do not duplicate what they have if they have sufficient.
- their favourite pot and why. Personalise the gift by finding what makes a pot special to them and seeking this out. Maybe colour is important, maybe matching it to an existing set is important, maybe size is important, maybe not having pictures of roses all over it is important….
- what they think they are lacking. Try to fill a self-percieved gap in their teapot collection.
Verify that it pours well by testing it. Experienced tea pot users can ’see’ a good pouring pot by looking at the shape and size of the pot, lid, and spout. Click on the picture of my Le Creuset pot pouring below to see a pouring sequence of 4 pictures from a good pot:
- showing now: full pot accurately angled for good pour.
- full pot inaccurately angled (or over-filled) producing embarresing spillage.
- half empty pot accurately tilted for pouring
- almost empty pot, getting the last drip
My experience suggests that lovers definitely give the best teapots closely followed by Mumzie.
