Wednesday, March 11, 2015

The Quest for the Perfect Tea Pot

Ever since I discovered Tea Forte I have become a major tea aficionado.  You may recall that I bought an old refrigerator and turned it into my tea cabinet.
The first tea pot that I used is the one pictured in that photo, on the shelf, left hand side.  We picked it up at a department store when we were out with Bruce's daughter buying her some things for her apartment.
It is a nice little tea pot and brews enough for two, barely, but the wire mesh basket has folds and some of the bits from my teas get stuck in them making it harder to clean.  Plus the wire mesh allows more bits to get in to the tea.  Then I broke the spout.  I repaired it, gluing it back together, but now it dribbles a little when I pour.

Being a Tea Forte fan I went to their web site to look for a new tea pot and found this beauty by BonJour.
From a purely esthetic perspective it is a winner.  I love the fact that I can watch the tea steep and the spout pours beautifully.  The infuser is a steel micromesh.  It works wonderfully and is easy to clean.  Hardly any bits get out, and because of the design of the pot, the few bits that do escape get trapped in the bottom of the pot itself.  Do you see how the pot itself is a sphere, and where the spout attaches?  The tea bits settle right against the side of the pot as you pour and the liquid passes right over them.  There is a plunger, as in a French Press, which traps the tea leaves in the bottom of the infuser and stops the steeping.  The first pot of tea that I brewed with this tea pot was the best that I had ever tasted.  It was divine.  Unfortunately there is a silicon piece in the plunger and it now smells like cinnamon.  Our two favorite teas both have cinnamon in them, but we also like other flavors.  I have disassembled the plunger and soaked and scrubbed the silicon disk, but to no avail.

So back to the internet I went in search of a new tea pot.  This time I just went to Amazon and found this one by Le Creuset.
It comes in purple, always a plus in my book.  It has a nice stainless steel infuser that is huge in comparison to the other two.  No crowding of tea leaves here.  The pot itself has a nice wide opening so it should be pretty easy to clean.  And it is a nice size, easily able to hold enough tea to fill our favorite tea mugs.
Time will tell, but the first cup tastes pretty darn good.

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