Customer Reviews

Cuisipro Tea Infuser

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have to admit I was surprised by how much of a difference a good design can make. It's amazing the little features some designers can think up! I don't know who finally thought of including a saucer with a tea infuser so you could put it down afterward without needing a separate plate, but they deserve some sort of award for being the only person to see and solve what probably should have been the obvious, yet wasn't.

The plunger is nifty. It really does make your tea brew faster, if you're the impatient type. It's the equivalent of sitting there stirring your teabag around or swishing your infuser through the water, except niftier.

The holes are small enough that you end up with a minimal amount of tea leaves actually in the water. It's pretty close to using a tea bag, and better than the "minuet" infuser mugs we have. It's also dishwasher-safe! I just take it apart, put the pieces in the part of the utensil bin that closes shut, and it's fine. Not the tiniest sign of rusting or damage. You can brew two cups of tea at once. So you can use this in your mug, or you can use it in your teapot.

I admit I'm surprised to find this much to say about a tea infuser, but I do like this one. Not only does it work very well, but it's quite the conversation piece, too!

So easy a child can use it.
1. Twist the ball to separate
2. Place the plunger in the lower half
3. Load in the dry tea leaves
4. Twist the two halfs back together
5. Place in hot water for 2-3 mins. then remove all the tea flavor by pulling up on the plunger while holding top half.
Great gadget!

However, this is a really nice infuser. The holes are fine enough for most teas and the capacity is large enough to do very bold leaf teas for a single cup or to brew a full pot of "normal" teas. Now, some of the teas I drink are too fine for the holes, but they are the exception. The design is quite nice as well. The handle sure beats those chains attached to some infusers that can fall in to your tea. On top of all of that everyone who sees this infuser asks me about it and always comments on how cool it is. They're right.

I bought this little item as an add on to get super saver shipping. It turns out to be one of the best things I ever bought on Amazon. And I buy a lot of stuff.

Not only does this little egg hold a good amount of tea leaves for a strong cup, but it has a little disk inside attached to a cable so you can squeeze out the leaves when the tea is brewed.

The pictures make this product seem very sturdy, but in reality, they are not. There are too many moving pieces and it's very confusing. The wire drop is fairly flimsy, plus the blue plastic stopper on the top of the infuser almost always ends up floating in my tea, which worries me when the plastic is in my boiling tea. Because of the wire drop, the little tea cozy that is provided to hold the infuser after being used is not very useful - the infuser mostly just falls over. Also, the holes in the infuser for steeping the tea are too large, and particles escaped in almost every cup of tea I made.

A British friend once said of tea I'd served, "It's all right, but it's not tea." I lack the patience and interest it would take to understand tea in all its diversity. That said, I like this device. It's easy to open and close, holds a good amount of tea, and its extractor doesn't fall into my mug.

I often use deep, narrow, thermal mugs so the long cable that sticks up from this little device is perfect. Since it doesn't use a hook, the thickness of the mug's rim is immaterial. Since it's fairly rigid, the cable doesn't collapse into the tea. It is always there, sticking up out of the tea, inviting extraction. This device is easy to clean, quickly available for reuse, and has stayed shiny.

True, the lack of instructions leaves the great question - whether to put the tea above or below the disk -- unanswered. Even though I've tried it either way many times and could taste no difference in the tea, I remain troubled by this uncertainty. I will look to future reviewers to answer this one, hopefully soon.

I wish the description for it was better. I wouldn't have bought if I knew more about it.

There is a disk inside it (with holes). I'm still not sure why (I'll explain in a second). It's attached to a metal wire which is what one would use to fish it out of the pot or cup. The tea ball itslf comes apart at the middle. So if you put some tea in the bottom half, then put it together, the only thing the disk could pissible do is agitate the contents of the tea ball becuase once you want it out of the cup or pot, you pull on the wire and the disk goes back to the top of the ball.

As others have said, the instructions are worthless. If a manufacturer introduces something new, they really should document it better so people know what the intent was.

I used it twice and put it in the dishwasher twice and it has permanent marks from the tea (tea leaf stains) on it. I put it in the trash can yesterday.

My advice is get the infusers that fit on top of the cup or teapot: Nothing to take apart when you're done, most are dishwasher safe, and you can get them in finer mesh so little tea leaves can't escape.

Nice concept, visually interesting, but functionally not quite what I was looking for.

Holes are too large and too few.
The holes aren't quite small enough to keep all the little bits out of my cup. I ended up using a screw on strainer cup accessory (GSI H2JO! Water Bottle Coffee/Tea Maker) from my water bottle to re-filter the tea. If it was made more of a wire mesh material, it'd probably be better at keeping the leaves out while brewing more flavor into the cup.

Saucer is useless.
The saucer is a nice idea, but doesn't seem quite large enough to serve the purpose. You're bound to have a drop here or there hit the counter. It's so lightweight and the infuser so heavy, it just doesn't quite work.

Too much work to use the plunger.
As for the 'plunger'... You need to unscrew the top and bottom parts, keep the plunger disc in the bottom piece while moving the top out of the way, then insert your tea leaves in the bottom over the disc, and re-screw the top piece to the bottom in it's original position. I actually found it kind of difficult to unscrew the parts, but I may have just gotten one with a tighter fit.

Unfortunately, this product will probably sit in my kitchen utensil drawer unused.

Being new to brewing tea, this is the first tea infuser I have ever used, so I have nothing to compare. However, if this is a good one as the other reviewers seem to think, then either I'm doing something wrong, or this is not the way to brew tea.

Note that the instructions with this gadget are minimal to the point of being worthless.

I tried it with Oolong, my favorite, and the brewing time is way to long to make a good cup of tea. By simply pouring the water over the tea and brewing for about 5 minutes I get a really great pot of tea. To get the same strength with this infuser I would need to brew perhaps twice as long, thus making the tea bitter.

With green tea it worked somewhat better, but still, no better than simply running it through a coffee pot.

I will continue to experiment with this gadget, perhaps adding more tea than would be necessary with conventional brewing. As for now, if I want a really good tea, I will simply brew it the old way.

Well, I suppose one can't wax eloquent about a tea infuser. These things are functional, not sexy. This one does its task quite well and it is invaluable if you are a daily, multiple-cup tea drinker such as I.

Using it has not changed my life. I'm no smarter and I'm still as poor as a billy goat on an ostrich farm, but this thing is good and I'll buy another one when I need it.