50 yr old china teapot is sweating sawdust like residue after being washed with soap & water-ideas what it is?

Question

The teapot has been wrapped in newspaper and in storage for about 10 years. It also has a musty smell if anyone knows how to get rid of that.

Answer 1

What you do really depends on why, after ten years, this pot is important and how you plan on using it.

Were you planning on making and drinking tea out of it? Was it packed away dry or may it have been damp? If it was damp, there will be mould. Clean it up and put it in a china cabinet for display.

Was it well used or in prisitne condition when it was packed up?

Is it heavily stained?

Newspaper has to be one of the worst things to use for long storage. The ink makes everything filthy and the fact that a gazillion people handled it means that is laden with bacteria.

Is it really china or is it pottery? Is the glaze "crackeld" or intact?

Tea has a high level of tannic acid in it. Acids will etch porous materials. If there is a chip or fine cracks in the teapot surface anywhere at all, the acid will eventually break it down, all the while negatively affecting the quality of the tea you would be brewing in it.

If the teapot is intact and was not stored damp AND the inside is not a strange colour, lemon juice may be more helpful than vinegar.

If the pot is actually pottery, I suspect that the "sawdust" is the pottery breaking down.

I have had much success cleaning inside our teapots with baking soda and a rectangluar scrubbie cloth. It is tricky, though, because my hand doesn't really fit inside the pot very well.

The difficulty is that the spout is virtually impossible to clean. I bought a long, narrow, cyclindrical brush used for coffee percolators but even it is too large for my 6-cup Brown Betty spout. (Its a Staffordshire pot.)

I am on the look out for another since it doesn't dribble like so many others do.

Except for some very high end and hardly used teapots, haven't you ever wondered why you do not see teapots in antique and second-hand stores? They don't last if they'll well used, no matter hwo well-loved.

Answer 2

You could try calling a local china shop or call Royal Dalton as they do china & ask if they have any ideas on how to solve this?

Or first try rincing the teapot in a 1/2 & 1/2 solution of white vinager & water--I find that works well fo geting rid of musty smells & weird residues--don't necessairly let it soak, just pour the solution over the tea pot & inside a few times.