Understanding the importance of tea in our daily life and provides in depth research on the history of tea, the culture behind drinking tea, the benefits of drinking tea as well as some key statistics involving the world tea consumption. Various health hazards of drinking hot tea or cooling the tea by blowing air from the mouth have been listed at length. This, in turn, throws light on the necessity of coming up with an innovative design for the teapot, teacups, and the accompanying items i.e. the teaspoons and the saucers. Prior to designing the tea set, various materials for the making of the tea set have been analyzed along with the study of the evolution of the tea sets and their design across centuries. For this thesis and the tea set designed, the prominent designer whose work was researched was Christopher Dresser, the 18th century modern designer who is thought to be the forerunner of modern design built on form, simple linear design, and function. The design process involved extensive brainstorming and developing the design mock-ups for the tea sets. With the identified design guidelines in mind, the most suitable design was then finalized. The actual modeling was done through the use of 3D printing, which helped substantially reduce the time for prototyping. This document provides the details of the project along with information on the background research, the methods followed, and the results of the various studies done.
Supplemental video entitled "Seeing Light."
Library of Congress Subject Headings
Teapots--Design; Teacups--Design; Teapots--Materials--Thermal properties; Teacups--Materials--Thermal properties
Industrial Design (MFA)
Department, Program, or Center
School of Design (CIAS)
Almaqseed, Hawraa, "Thermally-efficient tea set design" (2013). Thesis. Rochester Institute of Technology. Accessed from
RIT – Main Campus