Teapots with overhead handle

I like teapots with overhead handle. This is because such teapots give you a more secure grip, like holding a conventional kettle. Holding the teapot from the top also requires less strength and one can see the flow of tea from the sprout uninterrupted. On the other hand, a side handle gives rise to a bigger bending moment, you need a stronger grip from the fingers of your palm. One problem arises when one needs to discard used tea leaves from the teapot. When you take out the lip, make sure not to knock the lid against the side of the handle to avoid damaging the teapot. Other then this, overhead-handle teapots are a great utensils to brew tea.

It was said that such teapots was the design of a famous poet Su Tongpo who lived during the Song dynasty era with the famous Tongpo overhead handle pot.

Over the years, I have collected a few teapots with overhead handle. They come with different shapes and sizes. Some come with a metal handle made of brass and both the rim and base are cladded with metal. The whole teapot is polished to a very glossy shine.

In other designs the handle and the teapot body are of the same clay material. Such teapots are not ideal for export as the handles usually break during transit. Hence not many potters like to make such teapots.

This elegant design is cute and lovely

A design from sections of a bamboo

A globular design created by an old master

Made in the late Qing dynasty

Polihsed teapot more than a hundred years old

Famous teapot of the republic era

A pear-shape pot 

Lotus leave design

The most expensive of the overhead-handle teapot is the one designed and made by Gu Zingzhou. It forms the center of a teapot set consisting an overhead-handle teapot with 5 cups.This eleven-piece teapot set was auctioned for over 17 million RMB in early 2000s.

Gu Zingzhou's creation