Friday, September 27, 2013

Gadgets: Takeya Flash Chill Tea Maker

When I make iced tea, I usually just put teabags in a quart jar full of water and leave it in the refrigerator overnight. Yes, I'm a tea heathen.

So, when Takeya said their 2-quart Flash Chill Tea Maker ($24.99) used a method that was new and better, I figured I'd give it a try. It's simple, really. Loose tea (or bagged tea) goes into the removable center piece. It's got a really fine mesh filter, so bits and pieces don't seep through. Then you pour freshly boiled water into the pitcher and let it steep.

When steeping is done, you remove that center piece holding the tea, and dump ice into the pitcher and shake the heck out of it. The documentation says that this shaking of hot and cold results in improved tea flavor. I don't know about that. Maybe a tea fanatic could tell the difference, but I didn't notice anything astonishing. On the other hand, I had cold tea right away.

I'm sure I could do the same thing in another 1/2 gallon pitcher, as long as it could withstand the shaking and possible thermal shock and had a tight cap. But, tea heathen that I am, I don't actually own a suitable pitcher. Hard to believe, right?

It's also a nice basic pitcher for whatever you use pitchers for.

This pitcher can come with a few accessories, if you go with a kit rather than just the pitcher, and others are sold separately. One that I'm interested in is a fruit infuser. Basically, a plastic basket that would be used in place of the tea holder that you'd use to infuse fruits into the liquid. While it might be nice for adding fruit flavors to tea or lemonade, I'm thinking it might be handy for some of the infused liqueurs I make.

Because that's how I roll.

The product was supplied for the purpose of a review on Serious Eats; this was previously published on Serious Eats.
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