A chocolate teapot is not as useless as the old saying suggests as scientists have shown it is possible to use one to brew tea – provided you do not stir it.
Master chocolatier John Costello and his team from the Nestle Product Technology Centre (PTC), in York, were given the challenge of turning the familiar idiom on its head.
Mr Costello enlisted some of the PTC’s top scientists and engineers to help in its development and solved the problem after a range of experiments.
He said they found that the secret was to use dark chocolate with 65% chocolate solids, due to its fat content, and build up a series of layers using a silicon mould. Doing so, they could create a teapot that was able to withstand boiling water to let the tea brew for two minutes before pouring.
“Interestingly, if you pour the water in a certain way and you don’t stir inside, and you just let it settle, and let it brew like you would normally brew a cup of tea, and just let it stand for a little while – when you pour it, what happens is that the chocolate on the inside of the shell melts but doesn’t move anywhere.
“It stays where it is. So you get a very, very small amount of residue coming up to the top.”
Tasting the final brew, the team concluded it was a lovely cup of tea with a slight hint of chocolate.
The PTC in York is Nestle’s global centre for confectionery research and development and has 185 staff.
