Chocolate teapot proves useful

Chocolatiers have managed to produce a chocolate teapot that held boiling water for two minutes to make a drinkable brew.

The York-based experts were challenged to prove the sarcastic phrase "as useful as a chocolate teapot" wrong.

The result was a hand-crafted, working receptacle made of dark chocolate containing 65% cocoa solids.

When put to the test the teapot survived, albeit pouring tea with a "hint of chocolate".

The hot water melted some of the chocolate inside the teapot but the viscous molten chocolate helped insulate the outside layer and the teapot did not leak, the team of scientists and engineers said.

John Costello of the Nestle Product Technology Centre, in York, said it took six weeks to develop the final teapot for the challenge.

The team initially experimented with balloons covered in chocolate to get a teapot shape and then cast a mould in silicone.

It was filled with chocolate, shaken to remove air bubbles, and the excess chocolate was poured off and the cast teapot allowed to dry. The process was repeated until the desired thickness of chocolate was achieved.

It took the team more than two hours to produce the myth-busting pot but the resulting cups of tea were overseen by Marty Jopson of the BBC's The One Show.

It is not known if tests are now to be conducted on the efficiency of the similarly-fabled chocolate fireguard.