I’m celebrating the advent of winter with a snuffly nose this year, so in light of my decreased capacity for sensing aromas, I’ve decided to forego the tea review and write instead about Teas Etc’s new tea travel mug.

Last year, when I put together my article about tea travel mugs, Teas Etc’s travel mug came out as one of my top two picks. With the release of their new BPA-free Tea Traveler, Teas Etc generously sent me two Travelers for review — one for me, one for Bec.

How it works

The Tea Traveler is composed of three parts: the mug, a stainless steel screw-on strainer and a lid.

To make tea, you place the tea leaves in the bottom of the mug, screw on the strainer, pour in the water and finally screw on the lid. It’s a simple process, but one word of warning: don’t pour the water in before you screw on the strainer, because you’ll find it impossible to screw the strainer on after you’ve added water — the mug expands a bit due to the heat. I learned that the hard way.

Of course, this means that the leaves sit in the water the whole time*, which means you could oversteep the tea. To get around this, decrease the amount of tea leaves you use, or use cooler water. I’ve found that covering the base of the mug with tea leaves generally yields a very good cup of tea, with the last bits of the tea being stronger but still palatable.

If you really want to be able to control how you long you steep the tea, I’d suggest Copco’s thermal mug, which has a twist-to-stop steeping device. But the problem with Copco’s thermal mug is that you can’t use it for any teas that have larger leaves — you’re limited to small-leaf black and green teas.

With Teas Etc’s travel mug, that’s not an issue. I love the fact that you can use it to make oolong tea, green tea, or any other kind of tea, because the leaves have plenty of room to unfurl. It’s a beautiful thing to watch oolong tea leaves uncoil slowly in the water, eventually revealing their full size.

For a demonstration of how the Tea Traveler Mug works, check out this video on Teas Etc.

* Unless you pour the tea into something else after infusing it. You could use the Tea Traveler as a makeshift teapot/infuser instead.

Easy to clean

One benefit of this design is that it’s really easy to clean. You just pull the mug apart, wash each individual part with water (don’t use soap on it), and you’re done.

Warm to touch (not too cool, not too hot)

It also stays warm to touch, without being too hot — even straight after adding boiling water. I’ve actually used the Tea Traveler around the house when I’m taking care of Benny (my one-year son), simply because I know he can touch it without burning himself. Granted, I still don’t really let him touch it in case he unscrews it — but at least it’s safer than a regular cup.

At the same time, it still insulates the heat well enough to keep the tea warm for at least an hour.

A better tea drinking experience

The number one thing I like about the Tea Traveler Mug is that it makes for a much nicer tea drinking experience than any other travel mug I’ve used.

You can actually smell the tea when you unscrew the lid, so it allows you to enjoy the tea’s aroma. I also appreciate that it’s warm to touch — the act of holding a warm mug is for me a key part of the sensory experience of having a cup of tea.

But most importantly, it has remarkably little effect on the tea’s flavour, which is a very good thing indeed. I find that most plastic mugs have a way of making tea taste washed out, while stainless steel mugs also change the flavour somewhat. With the Tea Traveler Mug, you’re getting a pretty accurate idea of what the tea should taste like.

Who should get this?

If you want control over how long you steep your tea leaves, don’t get the Tea Traveler Mug — try the Copco thermal mug instead.

On the other hand, if you want to be able to make any kind of tea – not just small-leaf green teas and black teas – the Tea Traveler Mug is the best mug I’ve used. It’s easy to clean, keeps the tea hot but won’t burn your fingers, doesn’t leak and most importantly, it makes for a great tea drinking experience. And at $19.95, the Tea Traveler Mug is very well priced.

The Tea Traveler Mug is available from Teas Etc.

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2010. | Tea Traveler Mug from Teas Etc | No comment |
Post categories: Tea cups and teapots, Tea reviews
Post tags: 12.85 oz travel mug, tea travel mug, travel cups, travel mugs, travel tumblers

Beautiful, no? Suffice it to say, at $20,000 USD it’s a little out of my price range!

From the seller’s description:

Approximately late 19th century, museum quality metal work, Japanese tetsubin teapot with exquisite and impressive gold and silver inlay work depicting beautiful floral motif and bird. It is excellent in condition. No repair, no cracks or chips, no leaking. This is the best of the best quality tetsubin teapot I have ever seen. Its quality is the highest and its condition is so excellent, and so I am very much confident to this museum quality masterpiece.

Check it out on eBay, or see more photos here.

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2010. | Would you pay $20,000 for this Japanese Tetsubin? | 3 comments |
Post categories: Tea cups and teapots
Post tags: ebay, Japanese teaware, tetsubin

Just a few weeks after I received the Travel Buddy tea mug for Sinterklaas, the folks at Copco sent me the latest addition to their Total Tea range: a stainless steel tea thermal mug.

There are a few things I really like about the Copco thermal tumbler, but there is one definite standout feature: the twist-to-stop steeping feature, a device that allows you to control how long your tea steeps for. It’s simple, intuitive and shows that Copco understand tea drinkers’ needs.

Unlike the Travel Buddy, the Copco thermal mug stays cool to touch, even if you have boiling hot tea in there. That’s a good thing, though I must admit I burned my tongue the first time I used it — in a way, the fact that the Travel Buddy is so hot to touch acts as a warning to be careful when you drink from it. With the Copco thermal, the walls are made with plastic on the inside and stainless steel on the out, giving it a sturdy feel. A silicone grip around the center of the thermal makes it easy to hold onto.

My main complaint about the Copco thermal mug is how small its infuser actually is. It’s roughly half the size of the Travel Buddy’s infuser, which I already found to be quite small. As with the Travel Buddy, the small size means that you’re limited in which kinds of teas work well in it — I tend to stick with small-leaf green teas and black teas.

At $14.99, the Copco thermal is surprisingly cheap (considering how much some other travel mugs cost). Click here to buy it on Amazon.com.

For an overview of some other cups for drinking tea on the go, see my guide to travel tea mugs.

I have also added Copco’s teaware to the Tea Finely Brewed marketplace — they have some interesting stuff!

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2010. | Copco 16-Ounce Stainless Steel Thermal Mug | No comment |
Post categories: Tea cups and teapots, Tea reviews
Post tags: 16-ounce travel mug, Copco, stainless steel thermal mug, travel mugs, Travel Tea Mug

This particular Travel Buddy was bought in Malaysia, but since getting it I have noticed it in a shop here in Melbourne, as well as on Pure Puer. For any of you considering buying one, here are my thoughts.

The thing that I find interesting about the Travel Buddy is that the infuser sits at the bottom of the mug, rather than at the top, which is where most other travel mugs I’ve seen have their infuser. I wonder whether it was decided this way with Asian tea drinkers in mind, as I know that in China at least, it’s common to leave tea leaves in the bottom of your cup and just re-steep them throughout the day. Whatever the case, it means that it’s easy to over-brew your tea, so for this reason I prefer to use less tea leaves than I normally would.

One limiting factor about the infuser is that it is quite small, so it’s not suited to teas that need their leaves to expand. I’ve generally opted for black teas and small-leaf green teas.

The good thing about the infuser is how tiny its holes are. The smaller the hole, the less leaf particles make their way into the drink itself.

The Travel Buddy is made entirely of plastic. Unfortunately, the walls are particularly thin and get very hot when you fill it with boiling water. There’s no handle either, so you have to rely on the wristband to hold it while it’s still hot. Most of the time, I find I have to wait at least 5 minutes before I can start drinking the tea, simply because it’s too hot to touch otherwise.

The mug also releases the heat fairly quickly, again due to the thinness of the plastic. I haven’t timed it very closely, but I would estimate that the drink stays hot for about 30 – 40 minutes.

You can buy a Travel Buddy sleeve to go with it, which kills two birds in one stone: you’ll be able to touch the bottle when it’s hot and it should also retain the heat for a bit longer.

Some travel mugs are hard to clean. Not the Travel Buddy. I’m not sure if the mug is dishwasher-safe (we don’t use a dishwasher), but it is definitely easy to clean. Just disassemble it, give it a quick rinse, and you’re done.

The Travel Buddy tea travel mug is available from Pure Puer. Check out more about travel mugs on my previous post: Tea Travel Mugs: A Buyer’s Overview of the Options.

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2010. | Travel Buddy Infuser Tea Mug Review | 2 comments |
Post categories: Tea cups and teapots, Tea reviews
Post tags: Tea Tumbler, Travel Buddy, Travel Mug, Travel Tea Mug

How photogenic is yixing teaware?

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2010. | Pictures of My Yixing Tea Set | 7 comments |
Post categories: Tea cups and teapots
Post tags: Yixing Tea Set, Yixing Teapot, Yixing Teaware

Technically, when you buy someone a present it’s supposed to be because they want it, not because you want it.

But I seriously love this tokoname teapot I bought for Bec this Christmas. I got her a green tea starter kit from O-Cha, which means you pick a teapot, cup, tea and extra accessories or tea and get a 10% discount.

Tokoname is one of the six major ceramic-producing regions in Japan. It’s also the oldest, with kilns that date back centuries.

There are a few things that I love about this teapot. It’s beautiful, but it’s also highly functional. For one, it pours perfectly. This is the first teapot with a side-handle that I’ve used, and it surprised me just how intuitive and easy it is to pour with it. It also has an metal screen infuser that stops it from getting clogged while you pour.

The only downside is that it can be a bit tricky cleaning out the teapot after use. I rinse it out with running water, but it’s a challenge to get all the little bits of tea out — especially with smaller green teas.

Tokoname Teapot KI703 is available from O-Cha.

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2009. | Tokoname Teapot KI703 from O-Cha | 3 comments |
Post categories: Tea cups and teapots, Tea reviews
Post tags: Tokoname Teapot

The Steampunk Teapot is the work of Michael Morarity. It’s inspired by steampunk, which according to that great arbiter of all human argument, Wikipedia, is a sub-genre of the “fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s”.

So there you have it: Today’s lesson in culture.

The teapot comes with a temperature gauge, a spout cover and a percolation window. Funky. Perhaps another potential gift idea for the tea lover in your life?

More novelty tea ware

There’s plenty more where this came from. Check out these other posts on brilliant teapots, cups and more.

• 3 Brilliant Tea Kettle Designs: Tea-Off Competition Winners
• Tea Tumblers: A Buyer’s Overview of the Options
• Stain: the Tea Cup that Improves with Use
• 19 Weird and Wacky Teapots
• The Tifi Tea Strainer

© Eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2009. | Steampunk Teapot | 7 comments |
Post categories: Tea cups and teapots
Post tags: Steampunk, teapots

But it’s awfully handy having a travel mug, so lately I’ve been checking out some of the options available out there. Turns out there is quite a bit of choice for those of us who like to take their tea on the road. In this post I’ve compiled a list of some of the factors to consider and a run-down of some of the best choices available to tea drinkers.

From left to right: The Zojirushi Stainless Steel Tumbler with Infuser; Teas Etc. Tea Travel Mug; Teavana Dragon Double-walled Travel Tumbler.

7 Factors to Consider when Buying a Tea Travel Mug

There are a number of factors that come into play when trying to decide between travel mugs.

What kind of material is the cup made of?

Stainless steel, glass and plastic are the most common choices, though Teavana also offer a selection of tumblers made of bone china. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t like the idea of a plastic travel mug. Bone china also kind of freaks me out, because I have a tendency to be quite clumsy. Of stainless steel and glass, I find myself leaning towards glass — the last two mugs I had were stainless steel and I found that one of them had a nasty tendency to make the tea taste metallic. Granted, my wife thinks I’m silly to go for glass because I’m so clumsy…

Is it spill-proof?

Of all the factors to consider, this one is the hardest to judge without personally trying the cup. It’s also one of the most important, in my opinion. Ideally, I should be able to stick the cup in my bag without worrying about it spilling tea over the other stuff in the bag. As I more or less expected, most of the cups I read about said they were spill-proof, but reading some of the comments and customer reviews was helpful in picking out which cups are a little more susceptible to spilling.

How long does it keep tea warm for?

Some promise to keep your tea warm for up to eight hours, while others promise less than four. Again, the customer reviews were very helpful in sorting the wheat from the chaff. One rather novel thermos comes with a power cable that plugs into your car cigarette lighter, so you can keep your tea warm for even longer.

How large is it?

The travel mugs I came across ranged from 8 oz capacity to 16 oz capacity. This is a fairly minor factor to me.

How easy is it to wash?

A couple of the cups I saw said they have to be washed by hand. One tumbler, Teavana’s Harmony Glass Tea Tumbler, said it was safe for the top shelf of a dishwasher. I don’t use a dishwasher, so this is pretty much a non-issue for me. However, I do want a cup that can be washed by hand easily, without any hard-to-reach bits.

What does it look like?

Depending on your taste, this might be an important factor or completely irrelevant. Personally, I’m in the latter category, but if you like pretty cups, check out Teavana’s range. Zojirushi also have one very slick-looking mug, which incidentally topped the list in terms of price.

And finally… what does it cost?

The cheapest cup I saw was the VR3 Stainless Steel Heated Insulated Travel Mug, which was $11.37. The most expensive one, as mentioned, was Zojirushi’s beautiful stainless steel mug, which goes for $52. On average, most mugs seem to be priced around the $20 – $25 mark.

My Top 2 Choices

After considering all the factors listed above, I’ve come up with three mugs that I feel — based purely on research — have the edge over the competition.

Tea Travel Mug by Teas Etc.
This double-walled travel mug with a stainless steel infuser holds 12.85 ounces of tea and is very reasonable priced at $19.95 $15.95 (this is a special offer if you click the link above). It has some very enthusiastic reviews — though a few did offer some helpful points of criticism — and comes from a tea company I trust. The combination of price, material and customer feedback puts this one at the top of my list.

Thermos Stainless Steel Tea Tumbler with Infuser
Again, people who own this seem very happy with it, based on the reviews on Amazon. At $22.49, it’s middle-of-the-road in terms of price, but for me the big drawcard is just how happy most people are with it. And it’s made by Thermos — one company that really ought to know about making good travel mugs.

13 Other Travel Mugs to Consider

• Glass Tea Cup Thermos by Summit Tea Company – Glass, with a stainless steel infuser; holds 12 ounces and ticks in at $19.95.
• Glass and Stainless Steel Tea Brewing Tumbler by Summit Tea Company – This is basically the larger version of the previous one by Summit. It holds 16 ounces and costs $24.99.
• Highwave Original Joemo Tea Brew Insulated Mug – A 14 ounce, stainless steel mug that costs $17.
• VR3 Stainless Steel Heated Insulated Travel Mug Cup – This plugs into a cigarette lighter, but the fact that it’s so cheap is a bit of a concern. It also doesn’t include an infuser. Holds 14 ounces and costs $11.37.
• Zojirushi Stainless Mug with Tea Strainer – The designer’s choice. Stainless steel and beautiful, holding 11.75 ounces and costing a whopping $52.
• Trudeau Tea-riffic 16-Ounce Travel Tea Tumbler – A plastic tumbler holding 16 ounces and costing $12.95.
• Tea Thermos with Strainer by Teavana – This one looks fairly similar to the Thermos tumbler I’ve listed above as one my top choices (except that it’s brown). Why isn’t this one listed up there then? At $27.95, it looks a bit over-priced.
• Harmony Glass Tea Tumbler with Infuser by Teavana – Again, this is very similar to Teas Etc.’s Tea Travel Mug. It’s glass, holds 11 ounces and costs $19.95. So in pretty much every respect it’s the same, except that it holds a bit less than the Teas Etc. model and it’s more expensive (if you take advantage of the 20% discount on the Teas Etc. Tea Travel Mug).
• Travel Press by Art of Tea – Art of Tea offer this plastic, 16 ounce cup that uses a press instead of a regular infuser. It’s an interesting approach, though the use of plastic turns me off. This costs $15.

Another Option: The Tuffy Steeper

The Tuffy Steeper doesn’t fall into the travel mug category, but it’s an interesting alternative. Instead of lugging around a cup, why don’t you just carry this collapsible silicone tea infuser, specially designed to fit most cups? The Tuffy Steeper is $8.95 from The Tea Spot. I don’t think it’s quite what I’m after, but I see it as a useful option for those who are travelling, or those who have a travel mug that doesn’t have its own infuser.

© eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2009. | Tea Travel Mugs: A Buyer's Overview of the Options | 9 comments |
Post categories: Tea cups and teapots
Post tags: travel cups, travel mugs, travel tumblers

Just as I introduce my new series of posts on novelty tea ware, World Kitchen just go and make my job a whole lot easier with a tea kettle design competition.

One Tea Kettle

At first glance, the One tea kettle looks more like a vase than a kettle (Granted, it scores points already for the Space Invaders theme of one of the designs.) But here’s what makes this kettle special: not only is it to be used for heating, it’s also designed for serving the tea.

As you heat the kettle over a stove, its graphics become fully visible, indicating that the water has reached boiling point. Remove the kettle from the stove, magnetically attach it to the trivet and – voila! – your tea kettle becomes your teapot.

The One tea kettle took out the top prize. It was designed by Vessel Ideation.

Spin Tea Kettle

The Spin tea kettle.

Lazy? I mean, really, really lazy? The Spin tea kettle is just for you.

The basic premise of Spin is that it allows you to pour water with “less strain”. It does this by retaining a stable centre of gravity – rather than tipping the kettle to pour, you slide a switch which tips the spout.

Since you don’t have to use your arm or wrist to pour, this is apparently a safer way of pouring that improves your balance, control and precision.

All good things of course. But let’s not forget the irresistible appeal of a product that allows us to do what we normally would do, with slightly less effort.

The Spin tea kettle is the work of Martin Giraud, an industrial designer from Buenos Aires.

Tea-Go Tea Kettle

The Tea-Go tea kettle.

I’m not one for using a microwave at any point of my tea preparation routine, but I know many people do. The Tea-Go tea kettle is specifically designed to let you make a single cup of tea in your microwave. It even lets you set the temperature you want your water to heat to.

The Tea-Go is designed for people on the go: once you’ve heated your water, you can remove the kettle’s inner container, which doubles as a travel cup and includes a hole through which you can steep and remove tea bags.

The Tea-Go tea kettle was designed by the folk from Ram Industrial Design.

More novelty tea ware

There’s plenty more where this came from. Check out these other posts on brilliant teapots, cups and more.

• Tea Tumblers: A Buyer’s Overview of the Options
• Stain: the Tea Cup that Improves with Use
• 19 Weird and Wacky Teapots
• The Tifi Tea Strainer

© eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2009. | 3 Brilliant Tea Kettle Designs: Tea-Off Competition Winners | 4 comments |
Post categories: Tea cups and teapots
Post tags: one tea kettle, spin tea kettle, tea kettles, tea-go tea kettle, Wonderful World of Novelty Tea Ware

But this excellent video by MarshalN explains the basic technique of brewing tea with a gaiwan, without delving into overly complicated ideas. If, like me, you’re new to gaiwans, this video should give you the crash course you’re looking for.

© eric for Tea Finely Brewed, 2009. | How to Use a Gaiwan | 2 comments |
Post categories: Tea cups and teapots
Post tags: Beginner's Guide to Tea, brewing tea, gaiwan, tea pots