My husband’s getting into loose teas these days. We don’t have any quality tea-making products at home (he’s heating water in a saucepan, and shoving his loose tea into 2 old rusty tea balls). I would like to give him great tea making equipment for Chrismakwanzaakah this year and I’m looking for the things you love or wish you had. Electric tea kettle? Infusers? Gold-plated sugar spoons? I want to make the tea experience more enjoyable and convenient for him, especially now that the weather is getting cold and a hot mug of tea is very nice.
Certainly any tea kettle will be nicer than a saucepan. The only other things he really needs are a nice ceramic teapot, in which he will put the tea and the hot water, and a tea strainer, through which he will pour the tea into the cup and which will strain out the tea leaves. A very nice tea strainer can make tea drinking a lot easier. A tea caddy is not essential, but it can help to keep the tea hot in the teapot.
Squeezing the tea into a tea ball doesn’t allow it to brew very well, by the way. Let the leaves float loose, and then just strain them out at tea drinking time.
Oh, and though I’ve never tried it, drinking tea from a really nice teacup and saucer instead of from a mug may also enhance the experience. And if he takes milk and/or sugar, a matching sugar/creamer set would also be nice.
I’ve tried brewing tea other ways, such as in a French coffee press, or using an electric brewer (Mrs. Tea), but I haven’t found them any improvement over the old-fashioned method. Plus I don’t think there are any really good electric brewers on the market any more (caveat, “really good” to me includes having a capacity of at least 30 ounces). The electric ones do have the potential advantages of stopping brewing so that the tea doesn’t get bitter, and keeping it hot for hours if need be. I just wish I knew of one I could recommend (I would buy one myself).
Cheers,
Roddy
Hey C!
My indispensible tea-making accessory is this glass disk you put at the bottom of your tea kettle. When the water starts to boil, it rattles around and makes a terrible racket. Same idea as a whistling tea kettle, but with a great advantage–usually when the water is boiling enough to make the kettle whistle, it’s “overboiled” for tea. But this thing starts rattling before it comes to a full boil, so you can pour the water at just the right time.
I have no idea what the thing is called, but they used to have them at Classic Thyme. I haven’t been there since they moved to South Ave., but if they don’t still have them, I’m sure they’d at least know what they’re called.
It’s also nice to have a regular china teapot to make your tea in. When the leaves can float around freely, the tea comes out better than if they’re stuffed in an infuser. You’ll need a little fine strainer to pour the tea through also.
Speaking of infusers, I have a regular size one and this one, which definitely comes in handy if I want to brew a whole pot of tea and don’t want to fart around with the strainer and trying to get the used tea leaves out of the teapot and all that.
And you should totally crochet him a tea cozy with fluffy bunnies on it. I know he’d just love it. 
p.s. I didn’t see Roddy’s post before I posted. So you have two votes for “no infuser for best flavor.”
Forgot to say: I have a spectacularly ugly ceramic teapot that looks as if it were made entirely out of vegetables. I was going to give it to goodwill, but you can have it if you’re looking for a gag gift!
I adore my Chatsworth teapot with the infuser that fits it - I get all my stuff at uptontea.com, which is an awesome site.
This may not be the right time of year, but I have a Hamilton Beach iced-tea maker (Amazon link) that can use loose tea as well as tea bags.
I’ve been thinking of trying out loose tea in general lately. What’s a good supplier? I want to try some decent tea that’s still cheaper than, say, cola if that’s possible. Is the difference between teabags and loose tea as big as, for instance, the difference between Hershey dark chocolate and Lindt dark chocolate?
I have a spectacularly ugly ceramic cookie jar shaped like a house I can trade. 
It may have actually come from Classic Thyme. Fluffy bunnies are really not Steve’s speed; killer bunnies with blood dripping from their teeth might work though.
I’m hearing tea pot over infuser, but I don’t think Mr. Tee will enjoy the tea straining experience–I’m expecting that easier will be better, because he’s just not going to want to put that much energy into it and then we’ll be back to the saucepan and rusty tea balls.
Zsofia which Chatsworth pot do you have? They look really nice.
I’m thinking of getting him an electric kettle, too, since the Brit dopers usually rave about them. Does anyone have an opinion on those over the stove kind? Are they worth getting?
So far for me, it depends on the type of tea (but then again, I’m not the most refined palate out there). I use teabags for my “daily use” breakfast and chai teas because I’m in a hurry when I make them. I don’t find /that/ much difference between bagged red tea and loose red tea (loose red tea can also clog up strainers more easily than other types, so I generally buy that in teabags (though I always keep a small loose amount on hand–my local teashop sells in small quantities).
I find that loose leaf green tea is /vastly/ superior to bagged green tea and I will always take the time to prepare green tea loose. I also prefer Earl Grey loose (and when I drink Earl Grey I salt the rim of my mug!) and I think that darker black tea like a Lapsang Souchong is better prepared with loose tea leaves.
As for purveyors, you can get loose leaf tins from Twinings or Numi on Amazon and sometimes in your grocery store (Twinings is pretty much the Hershey’s of tea, though their Earl Grey is my favorite, even though I now have to buy it loose because they dickered with the formula in the teabags; most people seem to think that Numi is one of the better ‘grocery store’ brands). This is a less expensive way for you to start trying loose tea. Two popular companies in the next price bracket, as it were, are Republic of Tea, which sells bagged and loose and Teavana. I’m sure others will have other recommendations.
I’m just very lucky to have an excellent tea shop two blocks from my house, so I buy most of my loose from there, but I do have tins of the Pomegranate Tea and a few others from Republic of Tea.
Does your husband drink tea by the cup/mug or by the pot? If he likes to drink a whole pot over an hour or so, it’s really nice to have something that keeps the tea warm. You have three options to do that:
- Tea cozy. Very effective, no drawbacks, and nice to warm your hands in. But tea cosies are not very masculine.
2 Thermos-like teapots (like the steel ones with a double hull) or a plain thermos bottle. Effective, trouble free, but some people don’t like the taste of tea from a thermos. - Some kind of rack with a little fire under it. Looks nice, but it is a bit of a fire hazard, and tea often gets too strong/bitter on a flame. Plus, your teapot is more likely to crack. Also, the flame gets soot underneath your teapot which rubs off on tables/linens/naps when the teapot is temporarily put down.
A nice and rather special gadget/gift for tealovers is a french tea strainer. It is a strainer that is attached to the pot’s spout. You can pour tea with one hand, yet the leaves will be filtered out.
For instance: http://www.tias.com/707/PictPage/1922778085.html
I have the two cup, just the regular workday ceramic. The Chatsfords are so easy to use - you just stick the infuser in the pot, which is made just for it, and you dump the loose tea in. Could not be simpler. Dishwasher safe.
Also, I have one of their electric kettles, the one where you can control the temperature so you can do teas that aren’t supposed to be as hot. It is da bomb. It heats up way faster than a kettle on a stove, even with American current. I use it for all sorts of things.
I really recommend Upton Tea - they send you a quarterly catalog which is fascinating, and they have a lot of great sampler sets so you can find out what you really like. I get their “Chamillo” tea (an herbal with a lot of orange and chamomile) by the huge tin.
Thanks Maastricht, that attachable strainer looks interesting and easy. He’s a mug at a time kind of guy, so I don’t need to keep the tea warm for too long.
Zsofia, we order all of our tea from Upton. They’re fantastic. We discovered them when we visited a tea room that got all their teas from Upton. I’ll have to check out all of their accessories now. Well, it’ll keep them in business, which is good, right?
Oh, I forgot, I also have one of their one-cup mugs. It has Westies on it and a strainer just like the teapots.
For a great loose tes supplier, try SpecialTeas. Good prices, great selection and service. I used to order form Adagio Teas but they were often out of the teas I wanted to order.
My favorite teapot is a BeeHouse teapot, a Japanese variety. They have a built in infuser and I like that it doesn’t go all the way to the bottom of the pot so the tea stops infusing after a cup or so. I have the 22oz one which usually gives me about 3 cups of tea.
If your husband likes to drink tea all day and you want to get really fancy, get a hot water dispenser like this Panasonic or a Zojirushi, the Cadillac of hot water dispensers. Asian households often have one of these so they can have hot tea at a moment’s notice.
How about a teapot that will take over half a gallon? Wonderful for when you have a good few friends round for tea. And the decorative ones look most impressive.
But do those devices actually deliver boiling water, not just hot ? You really need boiling water to make proper tea. Better (and cheaper) to get an electric kettle
Well, yeah. But the image of him walking around with a fluffy bunny tea cozy is just so funny.
Do you ever get down to the Wegman’s in Woodbridge? They have a lot of different loose teas, and you can buy small quantities of each. I can’t really vouch for the quality, but everything I’ve tried from there has been good. They also seem to have a lot of nice teapots and things.
They have different temp settings, boiling for black teas but lower for green teas. (Green tea needs temps around 180 or so, too hot water is why Starbucks tea is so awful) Electric tea kettles are definitely cheaper but you have to wait for them to heat up. The beauty of the hot water dispenser is that the water is the perfect temperature available instantly. Totally not essential but nice to have. (I just added the Zojirushi to my wishlist)
mr emilyforce and I like the IngenuiTea thingummy. I found it especially nice when my office was in a cubefarm; I could go to the kitchen, boil water and add it to the container, and carry it back to my cube to let it properly steep for five minutes, and have it just the way I like it without having to hang out in the kitchen the whole time. When we first got one it seemed flimsy to me, it being all plastic, but we’ve had it two years now and haven’t managed to break it. And cleanup was easier to take back to the kitchen without a separate strainer.
Another (Canadian) tea purveyor is Murchies . I order from them several times a year for myself, and use them for Christmas etc.
My favorite is the “CBC-60” tea - somehow the idea of a tea named after a radio station seems so very proper.
Seconding the ingenuiTEA. I can nuke the water in the nuker until it’s boiling (but not superheated!) dump the tea in, and be back at my desk with tea that’s almost ready to drink. Besides, Adagio makes some pretty nice tea.