Most children's tea sets are pink. This one is a fruit bowl: a watermelon for a teapot, apples and lemons on the cups, and a serving tray printed with strawberries, grapes, kiwi and citrus. It is a small change that widens the audience, because it reads as a picnic set rather than a girls' toy and works just as well for a boy laying out an afternoon tea.

The teapot is the piece children reach for. Its body is pressed and printed as a watermelon slice — red with yellow seeds and a green rind band around the base — with a red lid topped by a small round knob, a red spout and a matching handle. The lid lifts off properly, so filling and pouring becomes a sequence rather than a mime.

Counting what is laid out in the photographs, the set runs to fourteen pieces: the teapot, a rectangular serving tray, four cups, four plates and four saucers. The cups are split between apple green and lemon yellow, each with a bright silver interior and a single handle, and the plates and saucers repeat the same two prints so any cup matches any plate.

The tray is the piece that makes it a set rather than a collection. It has a scalloped green border dotted with white and a yellow bed printed with a watermelon slice, strawberries, grapes, a lemon and a lime, and it is large enough to carry the teapot plus two settings in one trip — which is exactly the trip a four year old wants to make.

The box carries a 3+ mark and is labelled a children's tin tea set. Pressed metal is thin, so this suits a child past the stage of biting or bending things, and pieces should be wiped with a damp cloth rather than soaked, since printed tinplate does not survive a long wash. Pack it back into its moulded tray between parties and the print stays bright for years.

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