Praise from Yorkshire Tea as new red teapot emoji announced

The new emoji (right) which has been praised by Yorkshire Tea

A teapot emoji has been announced as one of the new icons being introduced to the keyboard this year.

It follows a request for a proper tea emoji from Yorkshire Tea, with the new design looking very similar to the company's own iconic red teapot.

Harrogate-based Yorkshire Tea, owned by Taylor's, said on Thursday the "glorious" new emoji was a cause for celebration.

The emoji is remarkably similar to Yorkshire Tea's iconic red teapot

A statement on its website said: "We put a formal application together and sent it to the people who decide on new emoji – the Unicode Consortium.

"We included lots of complicated data about global tea drinking, and elaborate justifications about how having a choice of only a green drink or a dark brown drink was letting down a whole world of tea drinkers.

"Did we expect it to succeed? Not in our wildest dreams! As far as we knew, the Unicode Consortium lived on a secret island somewhere in the middle of the ocean, making worldwide communications decisions from their shadowy volcano lair.

"Applying to them felt like inviting Google round for pizza, or trying to call Facebook to talk to a human being.

"But it worked! The Unicode Consortium said yes – and recognised tea for the glorious, life-affirming beverage it is."

The new emoji will appear on smartphone keyboards in March, joining the roll out of 116 other new additions including a woolly mammoth, a polar bear and a gender neutral Santa Claus.