The Sorapot is a transparently beautiful way to serve tea – as long as it’s not made with unsightly bags.

Over the past few years, tea has gone from a drink best known as beloved by the English in the afternoon, and the Japanese and Chinese at ceremonies, to a dizzying array of healthy, invigorating/relaxing/detoxifying infusions: green, yellow, rooibos, jasmine, chai, mint, camomile, ginseng.

And teapots have gone from simple ceramic structures to pieces of contemporary design in themselves. The Sorapot is an architectural shape made of stainless steel and pyrex, a simple form which allows you to watch the age-old brewing process. As the designer, Joey Roth, puts it: “It articulates the ritual of tea making in a thoroughly modern way.”

The Sorapot makes enough tea for two cups, and comes in two versions: brushed and mirrored. The stainless steel used is made by the same process as jet turbine blades and space shuttle components. Its packaging, however, is less high-tech, contrasting with the hard grey metallic object contained inside: the pot comes encased in post-consumer recycled cardboard and moulded pulp, fastened with natural jute rope.

Version II of the Sorapot  is currently being developed, and is sure to be as popular as the original, which is priced at $200 for brushed and $250 for polished – if you’re lucky enough to get a hold of one, as they’re hard to come by. Keep your eyes peeled, and start thinking about the most visually-impressed dried ingredients to showcase in this mesmerizing window.

The post The Sorapot: A Transparent Way to Brew Tea appeared first on EcoSalon.

Each week here at EcoSalon, I beg my favorite bloggers and designers to hand select a beloved green product, whether it’s a finish, furnishing, or accessory. The end result? An endless anthology of aesthetically perfect products for your perusal.

This week, Celine Rogers of Pure Green is here to share her flawless taste. Her pick? The one and only Tolix A Chair. Celine is drawn to this lovely form of steel, finding its composition (entirely recyclable materials) and versatility endearing. Check out the Tolix website to find a distributor near you.

In addition to her flawless taste, Celine is a source of infinite wisdom and creativity neatly packaged into an online delight, Pure Green Living Magazine. Ninety pages of visual amusement that is inherently green. Does it get any better?! Oh, and (of course) you can find the Tolix A Chair gracing page fourteen.

After you devour the premier issue, mark your calendar for the next edition in early September – or subscribe and watch your inbox for a gorgeous delivery.

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Next time you’re planning a bash and thinking about ordering in, maybe go all the way and order all of it in – like all of it. Yo! Go nuts and party hard in a recycled shipping container!

Boxman Studios is custom-fabricating these steel pains in the ass, and outfitting them with seating for 26, a double-sided bar, solar-powered electrical hookups and 500-square-feet of covered space. They “deliver” anywhere and claim to be able to set ’em up and break ’em down in about 20 minutes.

They even come with a cool tag line: “It’s Crossed Great Oceans and Traversed Massive Continents. It Can Handle Your Next Event.”

More fun specs: A 20′ x 25′ bamboo floor area, space for dancing, an open gullwing awning that spreads out the entire operation, “couch seating” (parties must have couches, no?) for 20 and space for six at the bar. The solar sitch is four 120-volt outlets to power TVs, a dj booth, extra lighting, refrigerators and whatever else you want to plug in.

According to Boxman’s blog, the operation started when owner David Campbell was reading about recycled shipping containers being used as sustainable housing alternatives and came up with the idea of “mobile hospitality venues.” Business acumen aside, the idea does indeed show some good enviro-citizenship: It takes 4,000 kW-hours of energy to melt a 20′ shipping container for use as steel beams. It takes only about five percent of that (200 kW-hours) to fabricate a Boxman Studios venue. Add those solar power capabilities and you have your green party in a box.

Check it out at Gizmodo.

The post Would You, Could You in a Box? appeared first on EcoSalon.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster has leaked more than one million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The magnitude is so large that many people are struggling to put the numbers into tangible context. Cutler J. Cleveland, a Boston University professor of Geography and Environment, and the editor of the Encyclopedia of Earth, has calculated the energy equivalents for EcoSalon readers to better grasp the enormity of this disaster. Dr. Cleveland is also a Senior Fellow at the National Council for Science and the Environment.

The energy content of one million barrels is about 5.8 trillion Btu (British Thermal Units), which is equivalent to:

1. Years of energy used in a single average America home: 61,117

2. Number of miles that could be driven by a Prius: 2,320,000,000

3. Number of airplane round trips between London and Louisiana that could be taken by BP CEO Tony Hayward: 198,352

4. Hours of motor gasoline consumption for the entire United States: 3

5. Minutes of world energy use: 6

6. Minutes of energy that could power the entire country of Ghana: 22,252 (about 15 days)

7. Members of the Chinese population whose energy consumption could be met for year: 98,472

8. Number of Americans whose energy consumption could be met for year: 17,211

9. Dollars of GDP produced in China: $210,893,753

10. Dollars of GDP produced in the United States: $743,971,267

11. Amount of energy harnessed from 3,385,540,566 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

12. Number of acres of corn needed to produce the equivalent amount of ethanol: 159,928

13. Number of Tour de France races that Lance Armstrong could complete burning an equivalent amount of food energy: 81,408,631

14. Years of energy use in Boston’s John Hancock Tower: 30.3

15. Equivalent amount of energy in tons of firewood: 494,459

16. Tons of steel that could be produced: 354,393

Images: Steve Punter, (A3R) angelrravelor (A3R), goldberg, Kossy@FINEDAYS, futureatlas.com, RaSeLaSeD – Il Pinguino, nova3web, cathyse97, lauren keith, docsdl, scalleja, spcbrass, Lars Plougmann, malias, Adam Pieniazek, smith, on1stsite.

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