I was recently asked about this expression. Wikipedia lists several versions of the term used around the world; nine countries use “storm in a glass of water.”  The expression is used to describe a small event exaggerated out of proportion, or making a fuss over a trivial matter. The Phrase Finder proposes that the phrase probably derives from the writing of Cicero in about 52 BC, “He was stirring up billows in a ladle. “The Duke of Ormond’s wrote in a letter in 1678, “Our skirmish seems to be come to a period, and compared with the great things now on foot, is but a storm in a cream bowl.” The Gentleman’s Magazine in 1830 included the description, “Each campaign, compared with those of Europe, has been only…, a storm in a wash-hand basin.” The American “tempest in a teapot” is used in very few other countries, but apparently has a Scottish origin. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in 1825 demeaned a poet by writing, “What is the tempest raging o’er the realms of Ice? A tempest in a teapot!”