Kitchen Essential

The term ‘china‘ is used to describe widely different materials ranging from the finest porcelain to heavy earthenware pottery. Fine china is usually kept for entertaining and a heavier duty pottery or earthenware is used every day.

Porcelain and bone china

This is the very best china and, treated carefully, will last well. Its extremely delicate appearance is deceptive, for it is remarkably robust and, unless knocked quite hard, is far more resistant to chipping than one might expect. It should not, however, be put into or on a very hot oven but should be warmed very gently. Overheating will cause tiny cracks to appear in the glaze and the lustre will disappear. Fine china should never come into contact with direct heat such as a low gas flame.

China decorated with gold or silver leaf is very expensive and needs very careful treatment. Constant washing in a dish washer will easily damage the metal decoration, and although a gentle scour is often needed to remove tannin stains from the inside of the cup, such rough treatment is not suitable for the outer part.

China with any form of metallic finish should never be put inside a microwave oven. It will ruin both the china and the oven.

Pottery (earthenware and stoneware)

The price range in this category is quite wide as unglazed earthenware dishes are understandably cheaper than oven-proof stoneware. Unglazed pottery is porous, dries out unless pre-soaked when exposed to extreme heat in the conventional oven, and is liable to crack. Glazed earthenware is more durable but the most hard-wearing type is stoneware, equally suitable for use in the oven and for serving food on the table. All these types can safely be used for microwave cooking.

Some earthenware has a decorative pattern applied before the glaze is put on and at first glance might be mistaken for china.

Choosing your China

When choosing your china you must decide whether you wish to collect a particular design for breakfast, dinner and tea services, or whether each set is to be different; in which case what will happen when the set becomes depleted by breakages?

If you are starting to collect a service of china, make certain you choose a pattern that can be repeated when you want or can afford to buy more.

One reasonably inexpensive way to acquire good china is to buy ’seconds’. These are frequently offered at sale time or may be purchased from the manufacturer’s factory shop. If you do buy `seconds’, which usually sell for about a third of the price of perfect goods, it is better to choose pieces with pattern flaws rather than misshapen pieces. The pattern flaws are usually very hard to detect so friends and family who use them will not realize they are not perfect.

It is not always necessary to buy new china to acquire full dinner or tea sets. Junk shops, antique shops, markets and auctions often have the most beautiful period pieces, sometimes in full sets, sometimes in part sets. For anyone who loves collecting it is a real challenge, and great fun, to scour the local area or the country to find more pieces to add to a part set of Victorian china or a beautiful art deco set from the 1920s. Period china can be matched to period furniture and whole table settings made up to recreate a past era, with cruet sets, cutlery, glasses and candlesticks of matching style.

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