Despite New Zealand's dominant coffee and espresso culture, in my opinion nothing beats a good cuppa tea brewed at home. While tea bags rule by convenience it is well worth the time to brew loose tea leaves in a proper tea pot. Part of the pleasure of this ritual is the actual service not just the resulting drink. Owners of antique tea and coffee pots likely fell in love with the appearance and history of their china or silverware. Their appreciation must grow upon discovering the excellence with which old spouts pour. I recently had the pleasure of serving tea and coffee from a set of George III silverware and was shocked at the jet of hot liquid that streamed out of the elegant spout, almost overshooting the cups.
Whangārei Museum's collection has its share of silver and china service ware, both crude and delicate in style. Today we look at a pair of Victorian silver-plated pots, one for serving coffee and one for tea. The pair were donated by Mrs and Mr Christie of Whangārei in 1965. Mrs Christie had received them from her grandmother Mrs Tennant and estimated that her grandmother had owned them around 1895. While their ornate surfaces would have once been appeared to be burnished silver, the colour has since oxidised to a black tone. The lighter coloured interior makes it obvious that they are not silver pots at all. This colour feature is evident of an early form of electroplating - a method of making cheaper materials appear more expensive.
In this case, a base layer of white metal or nickel-silver, which has been coated in a thin layer of silver to imitate much more expensive sterling silver coffee and tea pots (made from at least 92.5 per cent silver). Electroplating was invented in 1804 but only became commercially available in the 1840s when John Wright and his associates George and Henry Elkington of Birmingham improved the chemical process.
