It’s the end of dribbling teapots

Tea lovers throughout Britain will be raising their brews to a team of experts after they claimed to have found the cause of the dribbling teapot.

According to the fluid dynamic experts, teapots drip because of the hydro-capillary effect.

This means that some tea gets stuck to the spout when it is being poured and causes it to dribble from the end while the rest goes into a waiting cup.

One way to prevent this from happening, the French University of Lyon scientists claimed, is to coat the inside of the spout with a no-stick superhydrophic substance.

By doing this, and making the spout as thin as possible, the dripping teapot may be a thing of the past.

The team has concluded their research with the statement: "A teapot with a spout coated by a superhydrophobic coating fully avoids dripping."

According to the Daily Mail, the problem of a dripping teapot had been solved earlier this year.

In January the publication reported that Debenhams had created a non-drip teapot.

Made from stainless steel, the pot had a larger spout and a metal plate inside to stop dribbles.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 4:55 pm and is filed under Tea News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response.