The past few weeks, I have been searching vainly for a teapot in which I can brew loose tea. You would think I was asking for apparatus in which to concoct some alien witch’s brew, from the response I have gotten from the local mercantile establishment. It seems brewing tea outside of the customary use of a pedestrian teabag is beyond the scope of present day emporiums.

To whit, I have been to various and sundry outlets of which there are not but a few here in eastern Virginia. I reside, at present, along Richmond Road, which has its share of shopping options, including various major retailer outlets among ite several shopping locations. I daresay, among these are included: Viceroy & Bloch, Lenox and Corning ware but nowhere can I find a simple teapot in which to brew loose tea at least at a price within reason.

At Viceroy & Bloch, an upscale emporium, I found a couple of space age-looking devices made of stainless steel, one for the inexcusably high price of $99.95 the other for an equally exorbitant $120. “Pretty steep for a simple teapot,” I offered to the clerk who shamefacedly agreed. Granted, Viceroy caters to the unabashedly well to do but these prices seemed inordinately steep.

I wandered into Wal-Mart, that emporium for the masses, and encountered wholesale unawareness. I am sure I was not making their day, but these gentlemen seemed unaware of the concept of making tea without the use of a teabag. In fact, I left with the impression that these folks could not conceive of a time when brewing tea did not involve the convenience of a paper wrapped pouch of the necessary ingredient.

Beyon d the convenience, the simple act of brewing tea seems to have slipped into the past, the past of my grandmother’s age, my mother’s age or even mine for that matter. I am aware that this is the twenty-first century (if only barely) but surely time has not slipped by us so much that simple pleasures are deemed passé, even inconsequential so that the acquisition of a mere teapot seems somehow an alien pursuit.

I have been into a host of commercial establishments wherein I usually approach elderly women sales associates in the hopes they might appreciate the nature of my request and I am universally met with expressions of total miscomprehension, as if I am seeking the Holy Grail, and perhaps I am. Most of these, poor dears, are at a loss to understand what I am going on about, what with my speech impairment cluttering up the avenues of communication.

Bu t beyond even that impediment, there still looms the total inability for these people to even understand my simple request: a basic teapot with the simplest wire mesh insert to accommodate the insertion of a moderate amount of loose tea and then to add boiling water in order to brew tea as it was intended.

I return to my original conception of the public’s inability to understand the concept of simply brewing tea without the convenience of a commercially constructed mesh bag with attached string. Such are the conceptions of modern man. How would our ancestors look upon this feckless generation that cannot perceive of a time where the simple act of preparing breakfast nourishment, would require the aide of enormous industrial processing.

© Stephen Alexander 2008