Cuppa tea
I was surprised to discover in Iza Trapani's book I'm a Little Teapot, the illustration ending the story is of a tea party in which the teapot merely contains hot water. Each individual has a bag in his or her cup. It struck me as strange that someone would use a teapot as a mere kettle. A teapot, after all, is for brewing tea.

My family almost never made tea by the cup, and I don't think it's some Anglophile affectation. Partly, I suspect, my mom preferred the frugality of boiling water just once and popping two bags in a pot that will fill 5 mugs. But mostly the communal pot communicated that tea is a social beverage. You brew a big pot and fill cups around the table. Even today, meals with my family of origin don't feel complete without a shared pot of tea and after-dinner chat. All of my siblings do this when we visit one another, even though all of us have been "out of the nest" for decades.

I suspect the companies that market tea to the US are partly to blame for American's individualistic tea drinking. The bags they make are so darned small compared to what you can buy in the UK. And drinking by the cup uses up bags far more quickly than drinking by the pot. My large Royal Worchester pot holds about 12 cups, to which I add just three tea bags for a very pleasant brew. The proper use of teapots is one custom the Bigelows and Twinings would probably prefer not to catch on here.