Hamilton Beach 40911 2-Quart Electric Iced Tea Maker

by Hamilton Beach

• Measures 17-1/2 by 11-1/2 by 4-1/2-inch; wash only by hand.
• Slim, 2-quart pitcher fits in refrigerator door
• Indicator light and automatic shutoff
• Adjustable brew-strength selector
• Fresh-brewed iced tea from leaves or bags in under 10-minutes

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 13.2 x 12 x 7.7 inches ; 4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00008VSCO
• Item model number: 40911
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (588 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #223 in Kitchen & Dining (See Top 100 in Kitchen & Dining)
  • #1 in Kitchen & Dining > Coffee, Tea & Espresso > Iced Tea Machines

Product Description

Amazon.com

Coffee drinkers have their automatic brewers, why shouldn’t tea drinkers? Ideal for family gatherings or summer picnics, this ingenious Hamilton Beach machine brews up a pitcher full of iced tea in less than ten minutes. After the pitcher is filled with ice cubes, tea (either loose or bags) is placed in the special paperless filter, and an adjustment for mild, medium, or strong brewing is selected. The lid snaps on. A receptacle slides out from underneath the heating unit which then holds the pitcher snugly in place. Water is added to the heating unit, the power button pushed, and the hot water drips through the tea filter into the pitcher of ice. When brewing is complete, the power automatically shuts off for safety. Complete directions for use are embossed on the slide-out receptacle, which eliminates worries about losing a user guide. Although the iced tea maker looks bulky when assembled, the pitcher inverts snugly over the heating unit for compact storage. Able to fit in most refrigerator doors, the 2-quart pitcher features a hollow, comfortable handle and a thumb release for the lid, but is not dishwasher-safe. Assembled, the machine measures 17-1/2 by 11-1/2 by 4-1/2 inches. --Ann Bieri

Product Description

Make perfect iced tea and chill instantly with this electric easy to use iced tea maker

See all Product Description

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

641 of 651 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect tea for this Georgia boy June 6, 2006

By Ellis Godard

I drink tea like you breath air, but I'll bet my air against your tea that this is the maker you'll want.

We had a Mr Coffee tea maker for years. It was fine at first, but increasingly problematic.

First, physical weaknesses: The pitchers crack and warp slowly but steadily, so won't last forever. You can replace them for about ten bucks, but with shipping that's half the cost of an entirely new unit. And you can't put them in the dishwasher, so you'll probably want at least several up front anyway, so that you can clean them.

Second, cleaning problems. Unlke the Hamilton Beach tea makers, the Mr Coffee bags go in the brewing housing, which has to be removed and cleaned separately from the pitcher. And if you forget to do that, you'll have yucky (even moldy) tea bags the next time you go to make tea, even if that's within two days.

Hamilton Beach instead keeps the bags' brewing area inside the pitcher itself, which you can refridgerate and prevent yuck and mold from occuring. Plus, the Mr Coffee station drips TEA on the counter as soon as you remove the pitcher, whereas the Hamilton Beach only drips WATER since the tea process is all contained in the pitcher itself.

Further, the Mr Coffee series requires that the pitcher get very close to the brew housing station, with the tea just BARELY getting into the spout, or else you'll get tea dripped on the counter WHILE brewing. That messiness increases as the pitcher begins to warp and crack. Hamilton Beach bests that both by including a pull-out tray that HOLDS the pitcher in the correct position, and by having the tea drip directly to the center of the pitcher rather than milimeters from the edge of the spout.

Above all, the Hamilton Beach series simply makes better tea.... It includes a dial that allows you to make weak, medium, or strong tea, and that's all automated. The Mr Coffee series has no such setting, but requires you to "close" the brewing area for a period and then turn a dial to "open" before it starts putting tea in the pitcher. That manual step both slows down the tea production, and risks making quite the mess if you forget to go back and open the dial.

(The reviewer who used 14 bags for 2 quarts is doing something insanely wrong. Above all, they're probably using individual bags. You'll definitely want to get a few boxes of "family size" bags. I use 3 bags for 2 quarts, and it makes as fine a tea as I ever had growin' up in Georgia.)

Finally, the Mr Coffee pitcher is a large and obtrusive ROUND cylinder that takes up lots of space in the fridge, even when there's only a glass or so left in the pitcher, plus a handle that takes up excessively additional space. The Hamilton Beach pitchers are instead elongated OVAL shapes, that fit in more places in the fridge, even in the fridge door, and are *shorter* so that you can put them on a shelf with a lower overhead.

Mr. Coffee: bigger mess, more manual, more cleaning, more risk, lower longevity, and lamer tea.

Hamilton Beach: no mess, no manual revisit, easy to clean, no risk, lasts longer, better tea, and more options when you make it.

No contest! Read more ›

140 of 142 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars We made not only the right choice but the Best Choice! November 3, 2006

By Gary B. Kendrick

Amazon Verified Purchase

For years we have used the Mr. Coffee Iced Tea makers and have purchased two of them. This time around we chose to get the Hamilton Beach 40911 2-qt Iced Tea Maker. Even though I/we haven't used the feature that allows you to place loose tea in the basket for brewing we totally like the Hamilton Beach method of brewing tea over the Mr. Coffee. First of all the taste (using Luzianne Family Tea bags was superior to any tea we ever brewed using the Mr. Coffee makers. Also one very large drawback with the Mr. Coffee maker is that the basket, for the bags, sets inside the reservoir and maker and most every time you brew a pitcher and remove the basket you have leakage of tea down in the makers bottom which over time makes for a very ugly looking reservoir, where you put your clean water to brew your next pitcher. Because Hamilton Beach placed the basket directly inside the Pitcher itself there is never any tea that finds its way into the bottom of the tea maker. Also due to ridges in the bottom of the Mr. Coffee maker it's usually almost impossible to totally clean the pitcher and restore it back to the clean condition at the time you first used it. This feature alone makes the Hamilton Beach a better buy over the Mr. Coffee but I thought, before my purchase, that surely the two would make equivalent tasting tea but using both Lipton and Luzianne Family Tea bags the Hamilton Beach not only brews the tea faster but the taste IS Better. On the Mr. Coffee the strength of the tea is controlled by a sliding knob on the front of the maker whereas with the Hamilton Beach it is three rigid clicks of control on the bottom of the basket (mild, medium, strong), we usually use Medium....

We enjoy "Sweet-Tea" being from the South and anyone that makes good sweet tea knows you sweeten it while it's hot at the time of brewing. Our method is to first fill the pitcher to the line and fill the reservoir and refill the pitcher to the same water level and then add 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 cups of sugar and stir with a whisk until very well mixed. Once the tea is brewed you have to stir the tea again but you get perfect sweet tea every-time. If you enjoy tea, even if you never considered an electric tea maker, the Hamilton Beach will be one purchase decision you will not regret. Having two Mr. Coffee makers before this Hamilton Beach I don't see myself ever purchasing another Mr. Coffee unless they make many changes to their product and even then taste is the final decision maker. I HIGHLY recommend the Hamilton Beach model and would gladly buy it again even if it was higher priced than the Mr. Coffee, it's totally worth it. Read more ›

79 of 81 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars YAY! May 9, 2007

By Luna Zee

Amazon Verified Purchase

Like many other reviewers, I was moving on from a Mr. Coffee Iced Tea Maker. There were many reasons for my retiring the Mr. Coffee, most of which are mentioned in other reviews, but primarily because the little spout that dispenses tea from the brew basket on my Mr. Coffee stopped dispensing. It was about 4 years old. RIP, Mr. Coffee.

Thanks to this new iced tea maker, I did not grieve long! Based on the sensational reviews that I read here, and the fact that the reviewers noted the same problems with their Mr. Coffee's as I did, I purchased this one and received it last week. I've spent the last week perfecting the process and am totally satisfied with the product and with the tea.

Good points:

It is very easy to keep clean. Because only water goes in the tower, there's no need to worry about cleaning it with soap and water. I often felt the need to clean out the tower of the Mr. Coffee because the brew basket leaked into it, and was always careful with the cord. No such problem with this one.

Having the brew basket inside the carafe has completely eliminated the leaking I noted with the Mr. Coffee. I have Corian counters and often found the need to scrub them after brewing with the Mr. Coffee due to leaking.

As another reviewer noted, the tea is dark and vibrant as soon as dispensing starts. With the Mr. Coffee, it did not retain the water and tea long enough for brewing to truly to get underway. I always used the Mr. Coffee on the strongest brew setting just to get medium-bodied tea. Not so with this Hamilton-Beach. I use the medium and get medium tea.

The size is a plus.... The water heating tower is small enough to fit in a cabinet, and the carafe is small enough to fit easily in the fridge with all the other beverages. The Mr. Coffee carafe was large and unwieldy.

My favorite feature so far with this model is that I can use loose tea in the brew basket without using a coffee filter. There is a built-in mesh filter in the brew basket. I prefer loose tea (the quality tends to be better than the tea you find in bags) and this just simplifies the brewing process for me.

All in all, I am very happy with this purchase and would recommend the Hamilton Beach Electric Iced Tea Maker to any tea lover. Read more ›