Tea is popular the world over. Tea itself is Chinese in origin, so it should be no surprise that the use of teapots is as well. The part that is surprising is that the invention of teapots came at least 500 years after tea was first made to drink. In China, teapots have changed little. From their first introduction to the West in the late 1600's, however, Western teapots have undergone many transformations while Chinese ones have stayed the same.

Origins
Tea was first written about in China in 780 A.D. It was during that time, the Tang Dynasty (618-907), that the Camellia sinensis began to be cultivated for tea production. During the early days of tea drinking, rather than steeping the tea in one vessel then transferring it to a cup, tea leaves were placed directly into a cup of hot water. It wasn't until the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) that the first teapots were created.

YiXing Teapots
The first teapots come from the YiXing region of China. Since the Sung Dynasty (960 - 1279), a purple clay called zisha has been mined around Lake Taihu, and it's this clay that's used to make the teapots. The main feature of the clay is its ability to absorb the flavor of tea. If a teapot is used long enough, it retains enough of the tea's flavor that it is possible to brew tea with the teapot and boiling water alone.

Original Form
YiXing teapots were the prototype teapot and their general form is still used to this day (a bowl or cup-shaped vessel with a spout). Prior to the use of teapots, the leaves were steeped directly in the cup. The first teapots were also the cups the tea was drunk from. The pots were small enough to contain only a single serving of tea and had spouts that the drinker would drink from.

Construction
YiXing teapots are still used today in China, and their construction has changed little over the centuries. The teapots are made by hand on a potter's wheel and are left unglazed when fired. They're left unglazed for two reasons: the first so the clay remains porous and can therefore absorb the flavor of the tea; and secondly because the clay's natural colors are better displayed when the teapot is unglazed.

East India Company
In the late 1600's, the East India Company and trade with the West brought about a change in the design of teapots. This change is a small one (placing a wire mesh or grate at the base of the spout) and allowed for teapots to be easily distinguished from wine vessels which had roughly the same shape. At this time, teapots were also being created specifically for the European market and featured an English version of Oriental designs.