"Tea" starter set worth having?

Hi Jane,

I'd say NO. The Inginuitea is a great item though and well worth purchasing... I'd then pick up a few teas that interest you. The only one of those sets that seems worthwhile would be the black tea starter option. The green tea one would absolutely NOT be my way of introducing someone to green tea.

- Dominic Drinking: Lipton Green Label Darjeeling

The teas tend to be hit and miss and on the mediocre side but the Brewing Device is quite good and worth IMHO. I bought 4 of them back before Adagio purchased the sole rights to them.

-- Mike Petro

Mike snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com/26/06

19: snipped-for-privacy@pu-erh.net

A cup with inserted infuser takes less space, provides the same degree of control, and requires the same amount of cleanng. The release from above element is an unnecessary gimmick. BTW, the neat way at the end of he process in the film, all the used leaves fell in a lump out of the thing leaving not a single shread of leaf behind is laughable. I'd say pass it by. (Adagio sold a German infuser mug of good quality. I don't know if they still do.)

Michael

Absolutely, and I totally forgot to mention this (and it is what I personally use even)... I find the Inginuitea to be excessive and unnecessary. I use the Republic of Tea - The People's Brew Basket. If you search online for "Polymesh brew basket" you should find plenty of outlets and for less than $5. At home I use a chinese 3-piece ceramic mug that has an infuser and a lid for quick cups, that only cost me about $9.

For $24+shipping you could instead get either of these solutions and about $15-25 worth of quality tea from Upton's which would be a nice bit of quality tea and better suited to you and your tatses.

- Dominic Drinking: Mlesna Monks Blend Tea.

it's a gimmick. After several years of brewin' tea I use loose leaf in Upton's little fill-yer-own paper tea sacks on a chain clip. They're big enough they allow the leaf to unfurl but there's no mess, no plasticky taste. and they're ~$4 per 100. Check em out in the back of the upton catalogue.

[Barky] [Arf] Furthermore, you can get a ceramic mug at the thrift shop for 50 cents and a strainer at any chinese market for another dollar. So, for less than two dollars you'd have yourself a perfectly functional tea making kit. Word of advice on this: Put the leaves directly into your new mug, then when you pour the tea into another drinking vessel, use the strainer to catch leaves; do not put leaf in the strainer and the strainer into the mug as this will hurt the leaves' feelings by containing them too securely.

Boil water in pan. Throw in loose tea. Use any kitchen mesh strainer for cup. That's the way granny did it. If you have access to Asian shops then lid,cup,infuser $8 or pot,infuser $4. The knick knack discount stores usually have a 500ml tea press for $8. I use the kangaroo pouches for the larger pots with no infuser. They cling to the rim and lid seats properly. My local tea shoppe uses the smaller ones for cups to go. Michael is right, dump the infuser if you can. I could never understand tiny gong fu pots because they're little more than infusers.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:

While I agree with Michael and Cowboy, I still say that the People's Brew Basket is the way to go at $4 it holds well over a cup, so it has plenty of room for expansion and since it is mesh there is absolutely no restriction of water to leaf. The asian ceramic mug's with cup/infuser/lid are also very very good... however you need to pay careful attention to the shape and design of the infuser. Make sure there are a lot of holes and not too big/small, and that they are on the sides as well as the bottom... also that the infuser is as close to a 1-cup size as possible. This is a perfect solution because since it is ceramic it is not affected by tea flavors brewed in it as the polymesh basket can be to some slight extent.

They are all good suggestions, and any of them will work fine... and cost much less than the original product.

- Dominic

Note that Upton's sells a plastic basket which is made for Chatsworth, and which is very similar and about the same price. If you don't have a local source for Republic of Tea products, you might as well order from Upton's.

The asian ceramic mug's with

Too many of the commercial infusers have too large holes, and if you drink a CTC tea you find your cup full of leaf fragments. For a long time, I used a flat plastic disc with plastic mesh screens that was much more effective, but still packed the leaves in too tightly. The baskets are perfect in both regards, and they are cheap.

--scott

FWIW, this is what I use. A Chatsford teapot with the infuser basket. The teapots can be found at Upton's on sale most of the time, because some tea snob will find a minute defect in the pot and send it back to a sighing Upton's, who then have to mark it down ten bucks and sell it to people like me. I've had the same "defective" Upton's teapot for five years, and it works great. (I have yet to see why it was sent back.)

Ian

I agree that putting the leaves directly in the pot allows them to unfurl better; however, the easy clean up of simply throwing out a sack of spent leaves rather than spooning or washing them out of the pot then scraping them out of the sink outweighs the contraint that a tea-sack subjects them to IMHO.

Barky Bark4cmWf.22131$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr30.news.prodigy.com3/28/06

21: snipped-for-privacy@bonksbcglobal.net

Fair enough. And to each his own. Michael

FWIW, I just put tea in a teapot and then I pour the liquid through an ordinary strainer into another teapot.

I've used all kinds of fancy teapots with built-in strainers in the past (mostly Bodum models). It's always been a hassle to clean them without having to pick the leaves out with my hands.

Now I just fill the teapot with the spent leaves about three quarters with water, walk out into the garden and just pour the leaves out. Much easier and cleaner.

Most of the tea sacks I can get here are quite small and usually made from something like cotton or other fibres. Which means it's one more thing I have to throw into the trash.

Stefan

That is why the basket is such a wonderful thing. They are easy to throw out by just tossing the contents of the basket into the trash. And they have plenty of room to unfurl, just as if they were in a pot, mug, or gaiwan.

It is clean, convenient, allows good water flow, and costs $4.

--scott

I do the same at home, i put the leaves not in the garden but in the plant pots... but i'm always wondering if as it is not only a plant but a fermented plant, maybe it has any substance may be damaging for the plants... i use to put the used leaves in one tree big pot that it seems to appreciate, so i kept doing that, but always wondering what i'm doing exactly...

with tea bags, i broke them into a jar with water, so the tea spread in the water and then through the bag into the litter

regards from madrid, spain bonifacio barrio hijosa

... site in progress

It's a little on the acid side, and it can acidify your soil too much if you aren't careful. On the other hand, tomatoes should love it.

When in doubt you can always get a little titration kit from the local hardware or feed store to check the soil.

--scott