Toward the end of 2025, I decided to learn all about tea. There were several reasons: It’s winter, when a warm mug is always welcome. I’m observing Dry January and need drinks that aren’t alcohol. And, let’s face it, 2025 was stressful; why not enter the New Year with a calming ritual and the beverage equivalent of monks walking for peace?
But first, I had to find the right teapot. So that’s where my research, and this story, began.
The continent-hopping, millennia-long history of tea aptly includes the vessels in which to steep it. Every area of the globe has contributed to their design, though an Asian influence prevails. Today, the teapot inventory is vast, from squat cast-iron models to delicate fine-bone china and everything in between. No shade on manufactured wares, but my preference was for a pot handmade by one of Vermont’s many clay artists.
I started by perusing the websites of galleries and craft shops, as well as the Vermont Crafts Council and regional guilds. I visited Frog Hollow Vermont Craft Gallery in Burlington to meet some pots in person. And I picked three artists with distinctly different styles to interview about all things teapot. Kileh Friedman of Burlington, Frank Saliani of Montpelier and Cath Manegold of Bridport generously shared their time and knowledge.
Turns out, potters love to talk about teapots. And no wonder; they’re not easy to make. Having taken pottery classes myself — with primitive results — I’ve always considered a teapot the holy grail. What the casual observer sees as a single object is actually the sum of multiple parts: a body and foot, a spout, a handle, and a lid. Ideally, the assembled elements are harmonious.
“Teapots are tough,” Manegold confirmed. “If you’re exploring, there’s going to be a lot of disasters.”
Manegold was an international journalist for 25 years and an author and college professor for two decades more. While teaching in Concord, Mass., she “picked up pottery” and found an instructive parallel to sentence structure. “I would tell my writing students that a teapot could look like anything, but it has to work,” she recalled. “It’s the ultimate combination of form and function.”
In 2013, Manegold left academia to become a “country potter” in Vermont, and she eventually established Bridport Hill Pottery. Her porcelain work has a serene palette — primarily pale blues, celadon and gold — and avian ornamentation. That is, one or more small clay birds perch atop lidded pots and serve as handles.
The teapot “Hurrah for the Morning” — Manegold titles her pieces — has a creamy celadon glaze with vertical scratches, or “chattering,” around the body for texture. The bold handle spans top to bottom of the pot, the plump spout has a whimsical face, and a single bird minds her clutch on the lid. Manegold describes this on her website as “a delightful morning companion,” and she’s not wrong.
“Like many humans, I like birds and their energy,” Manegold said.
For Friedman, the energy is in the brushstroke. The branches and blooms on her pottery recall the flowing lines of Japanese sumi-e ink drawings. These botanical elements are not realistic but convey a connection with nature. “I find flowers, leaves and trees very comfortable,” she said. “They don’t have to be perfect.” Her glaze palette — browns, greens, terra-cotta, ocher — enhances the earthy aesthetic.
Brooklyn-born Friedman said she learned to make pottery at a community program while living in Atlanta in her late twenties. Two other moves took her across the country and to more studios, more classes. After relocating to Vermont with her son and then-husband, she set up a studio, taught pottery and cofounded a cooperative — still open in Montpelier as Artisans Hand Craft Gallery.
But in the early ’80s, Friedman pivoted: She returned to school, earned a psychology degree and worked as a psychotherapist for the next 20 years. “I gave all my tools away, loaned someone my wheel and threw out my glaze recipes,” she recalled.
Yet the clay called her back. Even as a therapist, Friedman ultimately began to “make pots at night” at Shelburne Craft School. Since retiring in 2011, she has devoted herself full time to pottery, which she views as both a tactile pursuit and a spiritual practice.
Friedman waxes eloquently about building teapots. “It begins with the body, the soul of the teapot,” she said. “The body has to be pleasing and have a lot of breath in it.” She describes herself as “definitely a rounded-teapot person.”
“Then I have to close it and make a lid for it,” Friedman continued. “And then comes the spout — I’ll make three or four and try them out.” She stressed that the spout must be attached high enough that the liquid doesn’t pour out too quickly. As for the handle, it can be on the side, at the top or 90 degrees from the spout, but the pieces should “come together with grace,” Friedman said. “A teapot is very graceful.”
Saliani takes this idea even further. “My work explores the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” he writes on the website for his studio, Green House Pottery. He muses thoughtfully about the experiences, patterns and relationships “that make us who we are” and how that idea shows up in his work.
But to an observer — say, someone shopping for a teapot — what catches the eye is that Saliani’s stylishly designed pottery looks like sculpture.
“In grad school [at Ohio University], I was making a lot of sculptural work, making parts to build sculpture,” he explained in a phone interview. “So that informed my pots. They’re really little functional sculptural objects.”
Some of his teapots are not exactly round. They have angles and seams and, well, attitude. The piece he calls “squarish teapot” simply begs to be anthropomorphized. In one iteration, the greenish body is wide at the bottom and tapers up to the lid like a Cinderella ball gown. Between the “skirt” and the foot is a heavily textured, recessed area — a recurring technique in Saliani’s work. The side handle, in pale blue, is pointy at the top curve (like an elbow) and white (like a gloved hand) at the bottom; it looks like an arm akimbo. The spout, also blue, is perky.
Saliani’s forms are unusual because he makes custom molds and casts porcelain clay in the desired shapes, a methodical process he said is “an art form in and of itself.” In other words, he makes parts for his parts.
His 36 years in clay work included residencies around the country. In 2020, he moved to Montpelier with his wife, a native Vermonter, and young daughter. At Green House Pottery, Saliani is a one-man studio, producing his own work and teaching classes for kids and adults.
So, I did buy a teapot, though I suspect it won’t be my last. It’s beautifully designed and glazed, the size is just right, the handle fits my hand, the spout doesn’t dribble, and the lid fits perfectly. Now I need to find a cozy to keep the pot warm. The way 2026 is going so far, I expect to be drinking a lot of tea.
The original print version of this article was headlined “World Cuppa | Getting the tea on a globally brewed beverage and locally crafted pots”
This article appears in Nest • Winter 2026.
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