Urn for hot water

I cross posted this on Teamail. Am looking for any advice for the following question. Thanks!

I am hosting an event where just under 20 people will be served tea. In researching an urn or hot water dispenser that will work for this event, I saw a couple of products on amazon.com, that are listed as coffee urns, but was wondering if these can be used to heat plain water too. Or perhaps even brew tea.

Two products I was looking at that were very reasonably priced and big enough for the event are:

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Any advice is appreciated. Thanks so much!!

Linda

Reply to
Linda
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Reply to
toci

If you're planning on serving tea of any quality, you should make sure the water is as hot as possible (preferably boiling, since I'm guessing you'd have black tea)

Reply to
TeaDave

You need 2 or 3 teapots, a kettle (electric is more convenient but you can do without) and a first price 5 liter thermos from the nearby Chinese market. If you take the second price model, it will have a water dispenser top.

Heat water to fill the thermos just before guests arrive, and prepare pots and cups. Then all you have to do is to fill the pots with water and ask 2 persons to help fill the cups. That way, everybody gets the first cup of tea at the same time. For refills, some people drink quicker than others, you can take your time and heat water to do one pot at a time.

Kuri

Reply to
kuri

Consider a Zojirushi, it will keep the water at 208 just off the boil, there is a reboil button if needed, and they are available in a 5Liter size. 5 liters would be enough to give everyone a cup before you needed to refill and then just top off the water once in a while using gallon jugs of spring water as people saunter in for their second cuppa. The beauty of this solution is you wind up with a device you might actually use yourself after the event is over.

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shop around as you may find it cheaper.

I have been using one now for over year and I love it.

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good Luck,

-- Mike Petro

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Reply to
Mike Petro

Hi. Any of those coffee urns can be used to brew tea. I see them used all the time. They're cheap too. So that's an added bonus. We used to make tea like that a long time ago. But I forget exactly how we did it. All I remember is we used an inexpensive loose leaf oolong tea, and used a very small amout of leaf to water - so the resulting brew was very weak - with only a very faint taste. Basically, it was just colored water. You can do a stronger brew too.

But I would pre-brew a couple urns full of tea first - and dump it - just so there's no funky taste left from a new machine when you actually brew tea for a group of people.

Some Chinese herb stores, and at least one tea store in Toronto uses these coffee urns to brew ginseng tea, and they hand out free cups of ginseng tea to all their customers. But some people also use them to brew oolong tea too.

For the type of tea they used, the coffee urn didn't leave any noticeable disagreeable taste. Just don't serve the tea in styrofoam cups. Styrofoam will interfere with the flavor of the tea.

Anyway, it can be done.

Reply to
niisonge

Thanks for the advice everyone! I think I really just want to boil the water, and not brew the tea in the vessel, and it sounds like these would suffice, and that the water would be hot enough. The Zojirushi sounds like an attractivce option, but I just don't think it's big enough. For the 16 folks, I'll be serving a cup, doing 6 cuppings, and then a cup to finish, so I'll need plenty of hot water on hand.

Linda

Reply to
Linda

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