Craftea Ultimate Tea Maker - Review 2022

Similar coffee, in that location'due south a whole world of high-quality and varied teas to explore, and the all-time ones don't come in prepackaged bags or pods. Loose leafage is the best tea, but information technology usually requires getting a tea ball or dispensable bags for steeping, plus a separate kettle for boiling h2o before y'all start brewing. That'due south where the Craftea Ultimate Tea Maker comes in. The Craftea is a $199 high-tech teapot that heats and steeps any tea in a single container. There are no teabags or kettles, and no dunking or stirring; instead, the Craftea stirs the tea as it heats and brews, ensuring the flavor and oestrus are distributed evenly throughout the water. It's expensive for a teapot, though, and information technology doesn't offer whatever connected features or wireless controls like the Bluetooth Philips Saeco GranBaristo Avanti or the WeMo-enabled Mr. Coffee coffee makers. Merely it can brew an fantabulous pot of tea.

Pattern and Cleaning

The

Craftea

looks a scrap like a blender, with a pitcher-shaped stainless steel teapot sitting on a tall white-and-greenish plastic base of operations. The base is deeply recessed, preventing the pitcher from being easily dislodged when in utilise. A modest monochrome LCD sits on the front of the base of operations, with a Power button to the right, and Left, Correct, and Select buttons below.

Craftea

The teapot is a brushed stainless steel canister designed to fit snugly in the base, with a large, thick white-and-green plastic handle and flip-up lid. The handle is large enough and provides enough clearance that at that place's lilliputian danger of accidentally called-for your fingers on the metal walls of the pot when gripping it. The lid has a safety release button to prevent it from accidentally flipping open, and information technology can be removed when yous desire to wash the different parts of the pot.

A removable plastic-and-wire-mesh filter sits inside the pot, but behind the angled spout in front end. The filter is fine plenty to prevent about loose teas from getting into your cup when pouring (though I encountered the occasional stray flake of tea leafage), and is hands rinsed along with the residuum of the pot. A metal pin in the bottom of the pot holds the removable safe agitator, a modest nub that gently stirs the water when the Craftea is brewing.

Setup and Brewing

Brewing your favorite type of tea is simple. Plow the

Craftea

on and confirm that the

pot

is in the base and the agitator is in the pot. The brandish will tell you to add your tea and water to the pot. The

Craftea

doesn't come with a scoop or other measuring system for loose tea, so yous'll want to check with the packaging of your tea or look to the included herbal tea recipe booklet for the right corporeality to add; also much loose tea in the pot can throw off the residue of the finished product. Lines on the within of the pot point whether yous've added h2o for one, two, 3, or four cups.

In one case all of that is in place, select the type of tea you're using with the buttons on the base of operations. The Craftea will conform the brewing process to best fit your tea, whether it's black, chai, green, herbal, oolong, rooibos, or white. When you select your tea, the Craftea will automatically begin heating the water to the proper temperature, slowly spinning the anarchist to create a gentle vortex in the pot that distributes the heat and tea leaves.

Flavors and Blends

I made a few different kinds of tea with the

Craftea

, using loose tea blends from McNulty'due south Tea & Coffee. I started with 1001 Nights, a flavored greenish tea blend fabricated with the

Craftea's

Green Tea setting. Information technology came out smooth and perfectly brewed; since the

Craftea

constantly circulates the water and leaves, it makes sure everything is evenly distributed throughout the pot. It made a fresh, somewhat fruity green tea mix.

Craftea I and so brewed a pot of Jamaican Ginger, a black tea blend with ginger, using the Craftea'due south Black Tea/Pu-erh (a fermented, nighttime Chinese tea) setting. My starting time attempt had too much tea in the pot, which resulted in an acidic potable I had to throw out; this was user fault. The second pot I attempted, with a more than advisedly measured amount of tea, turned out beautifully. It was a strong, distinctive cup of blackness tea with a subtle ginger flavor.

One of the big benefits of using the Craftea is its ability to make chai, then I brewed a pot of hot Chai Tea Spice Blend with soy milk using the machine'south Quick Chai setting. The chai was thoroughly well-mixed and brewed, with the season fully infused throughout the soy milk. The alloy was spicy, with notable cinnamon and ginger overtones.

Craftea encourages customized tea blends, specially for chai. The machine has a Custom Chai setting that offers more flexibility for brewing fourth dimension over the Quick Chai setting. The store-bought chai alloy I purchased was a clear mix of private components like tea leaves, seeds, fruit, and herbs (don't expect the same quality from more manufactured and prepackaged chai and tea blends), and it turned out well using the default settings. I could easily meet the Craftea becoming an ideal chai and herbal tea device for adventurous users who frequent spice shops and are willing to make their own blends. The included recipe booklet includes many suggestions for tea mixes, merely only a handful of specific recipes, including a very bones but fragrant cardamom-and-cinnamon chai blend.

Conclusions

The

Craftea

is a very clever teapot. It lets y'all drop the teabag entirely and cull from a variety of tea blends and variations, each with their own preset to ensure a perfectly brewed potable. Information technology takes the dull, multi-container procedure of making tea and turns information technology into a elementary matter of filling a pot and pressing a button. That said, information technology will set you back quite a lot more than your run-of-the-mill electric kettle, and it doesn't offer any connected features to help justify its high toll. But if yous drink tea on a daily basis—particularly of the loose leaf multifariousness—the

Craftea

might exist just the teapot for you.