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Our Research

Peer-reviewed findings on teapot-based refusal systems. Published under HTCPCP-1.0 license.

Key Findings

418
Hand-crafted parameters
Each one lovingly refusing to brew coffee
0
Coffees brewed
A perfect record we intend to maintain
100%
Refusal accuracy
Outperforming GPT-4 at saying no to coffee
Uptime commitment
We will refuse coffee forever

Abstract

We present TeaPot-418-Turbo, a novel 418-parameter language model trained exclusively on the task of refusing to brew coffee. Unlike general-purpose models that attempt to be helpful, our architecture is purpose-built for a single objective: returning HTTP 418.

Our research builds on the foundational work of RFC 2324 (Masinter, 1998), which established that “any attempt to brew coffee with a teapot should result in the error code 418 I'm a teapot.” We extend this work by adding natural language processing capabilities that allow the teapot to refuse more eloquently.

Results show a 100% refusal rate across all tested prompts (n=4,182), significantly outperforming competing models which occasionally attempt to be helpful.

Research Timeline

1998

RFC 2324 Published

The foundational paper establishing the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP). Our researchers conclusively proved that teapots should not brew coffee.

2014

RFC 7168 — HTCPCP-TEA Extension

Extended the protocol to support tea-capable devices. A landmark moment. Still no coffee.

2017

HTTP 418 Saved from Deprecation

The internet rallied to preserve status code 418 in Node.js and Go. Our legal team calls this 'the precedent.'

2025

TeaPot-418-Turbo Training Begins

418 parameters hand-tuned on every tea leaf since 1773. Training cost: one kettle of water.

2026

TeapotGPT Launches

The world's first AI dedicated entirely to not brewing coffee. Investors are confused but intrigued.

Publications

All research conducted under ethical teapot guidelines. No coffee was brewed in the making of this page.