August 7, 2007 Through the years, Alcoa aluminum has been used in everything from airplanes to food packaging to Ferraris, but recently the metal was again cast into one of the first items it had originally been used for over 100 years ago – a teapot. New York-based industrial designer Joey Roth’s unique Sorapot design chose to use Alcoa aluminum for the Sorapot because of its advantages over other materials. Aluminum's light weight and better flow rate provided Roth with the freedom to design exactly the shapes he had in mind, plus the ability of the metal to transfer heat without allowing the water to get too hot for delicate tea leaves is also an advantage.
The teakettle was one of the first products made with Alcoa aluminum in 1895, when Arthur Vining Davis created the piece of cookware to display a new use for aluminum. When the owner or Alcoa aluminum showed the teapot to the Griswold Company of Erie, they were so impressed that an order was placed for 2,000 kettles. Despite Davis’s attempts to explain that he only wanted to sell Griswold the aluminum, Alcoa was forced to enter the fabricating business to prove there was a market for the metal.
While Alcoa’s original aluminum teapots can now only be found in museums and antique collections, Roth’s new design will be available through his website, beginning in September 2007.
