Tips for buying your ceramic tableware!

The word pottery is derived from the Greek word ‘Keramos’ which means ‘clay vessel’. The word has now been applied to a wide range of products, from terracotta to the finest bone china. Tableware and crockery are just two of the categories that shops often use to describe the end use of this range of ceramics.

For the discerning shopper, dinnerware selection is largely based on fashion. In today’s fast-changing world, where casual dining has become the norm, our tableware often reflects our taste in food or the environment in which we use it. For example, Mexican food might well be served on brightly colored plates decorated with peppers, spices, and other vegetables that reflect the type of food we eat.

However, the technical characteristics of the tableware are much more difficult to identify. First, what kind of pottery are we buying? Is it terracotta, earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, or bone china? Often it just says china on the box, but this doesn’t mean anything as it’s just another broad term that implies it’s a pottery. But we already know that!

So how do we identify the different types of pottery? One way is to look at the body color under the glossy glaze. The best place to do this is under the foot of the item, as it is often unglazed. In order of pure whiteness, the following is a general color guide.

Bright terracotta red to reddish brown body color

Pale brown to beige stoneware

Ivory to off-white earthenware

Off-white to blue-white porcelain

Bone China creamy pure white

Porcelain and bone china are most easily differentiated from the rest by their translucency. This means that they allow light to pass through the piece. If you hold a delicate piece of china or china up to the light and move your hand between the plate and the light, you can see a shadow of your hand through the piece.

Now that we know what kind of dinnerware we’re buying, what does it mean? First of all it is a guide to the resistance of the part and means resistance to chipping, cracking and breaking. Second, it’s a guide to cost. Manufacturers of high-quality bone china and porcelain use highly refined materials and processes to “design” with the whiteness, translucency, and strength consumers require. Therefore the cost is higher. However, due to the inherent strength, you can expect this type of ceramic to last longer in use!

As in life things are never that simple. Manufacturers of other types of tableware—terracotta, stoneware, and earthenware—compensate for their lack of inherent strength by making thicker pieces. All types of items can be heavily decorated with color, so this is not the differentiator. So the buyer can choose between thicker and less white designs or whiter and more delicate designs!

Chemical resistance to acids and detergents is also worth considering. Higher-fired glazed tableware, such as porcelain and stoneware, generally has greater intrinsic chemical durability and is lead-free, but this is not always the case. and ‘lead free’ or ‘lead free’. Therefore, the astute shopper should look for these labels to determine value for money.

In short, dinnerware shopping can be a pleasant experience! Armed with a bit of technical knowledge, it can be a lot easier! Give at least as much importance to technical performance as fashion design when choosing your ceramic tableware.