Everyone knows that the Beijing National Stadium looks like a Bird’s Nest (燕窝) but can a teapot look like the Olympic Stadium which in turn look like the home of the bird?

Recently in Shanghai, there was a teapot exhibition which featured Purple Sand teapots or Zi Sha Hu (紫砂壶) that came in various different shapes with spiky names such as “The Bird’s Nest Teapot”, “The Space Shuttle Teapot” and “The Four Great Inventions Teapot”.

Purple Sand teapots are named for a tiny city located in the Jiangsu Province, where a specific compound of iron ore results in the unique coloration of these teapots. Exquisite ceramic teapots and tea bowls date to the Song Dynasty in glazes of brown, black, and blue. A bamboo whisk was employed to beat the tea into a frothy confection highly prized by the Chinese.

Of course, these teapots are purely for display purposes.

Via 诗香雅韵