Cauldron

The Cauldron was originally going to be a craftable essential block in Minecraft. It would have been used to make Potions using Brewing Recipes. It is planned to be replaced with the Brewing Stand because of the inconvenient method of brewing with the cauldron. The Cauldron will be left in game as Jeb has said he may find another use for it later. As of Beta 1.9 Pre-release 3 Cauldrons can now be crafted, and used to store water. Cauldrons can now refill Glass Bottles with the water required for brewing. Each Cauldron holds three bottles worth of water, which is equal to a single bucket.

History
Alchemy was first hinted at in July 2010, when Notch hinted that redstone dust would later be used in potions. Potion effects were introduced in Beta 1.8, and expanded on in the Beta 1.9 Pre-release.

"The reason why I don't think the potion effects will be in 1.9 is because there's not enough time to add the brewing system."

- Jeb_

"Potions are delayed because *add to cauldron, pick up, look at tooltip, pour back into cauldron, repeat* was extremely tedious"

- Jeb_

"A quick discussion with @notch led me in on a new way of doing the potion brewing. Cauldron is out..."

- Jeb_

"Look back at me! Your Cauldron is now a Brewing Stand. Anything's possible when working with interaction design."

- Jeb_

"I'm fully aware the potions are very thin (diet?), but it looks cute http://i.imgur.com/cNX6J.png (Always work in progress, of course)"

- Jeb_

Trivia

 * Potions can be brewed in 1.9 Beta Pre-Release 2 by adding a bucket of water along with various other ingredients to a Cauldron which then runs them through a mathematical algorithm that can result in one of over two thousand different potions with positive or negative effects.
 * As of 1.9 Pre-release 3 Cauldrons are available in creative mode and can be crafted in Survival mode.