I received the Breville One Touch Tea Maker as a birthday present last year from my then girlfriend and now wife. (That alone was a good reason to marry her!)
With this tea maker, you get a perfect cup of tea every time. It also keeps your tea warm after brewing for up to an hour.
You can choose pre-selected brewing times and temperatures based on the type of tea (black, green, etc.) or you can customize them according to your individual taste (no pun intended).
If you leave your house early in the morning and don’t have time to brew the tea before you leave, you can set the automatic timer so that the tea is ready and waiting for you when you rise.
Being a gadget kind of guy, I also enjoy observing this great machine at work. Over a year later, it’s still fun for me to watch the infusion basket automatically drop and rise.
Cleaning is extremely fast and easy. This is also important to me. Most of the parts can be run through the dishwasher.
I just have three minor complaints:
1. You have to make a minimum of two cups of tea. This isn’t a big deal, but every now and then I only have time or desire for one cup.
2. The maximum warming time after the tea is brewed is one hour. When I make a full pot of tea (five cups), occasionally I don’t drink it all within an hour. I can nuke it, which also isn’t a huge inconvenience, but it would be nice to have more warming time in the machine. I talked to Breville about this issue and they said that tea warmed for over an hour can lose quality and become bitter. Why did I get the feeling that I was being pacified?
3. This one can potentially be major. As of the last time I checked, you could not buy a replacement teapot from Breville if the glass pot should break. A lot of the electronics are contained in the base of the pot. Perhaps this complicates a replacement. However, glass does break and the French glass used for the pot is not extraordinarily thick. I did read in Breville’s question and answer forum that you can call them if your pot breaks. Hopefully they have some kind of resolution. This machine is not cheap or what I would consider to be a disposable item.
Those three issues aside, I absolutely love this machine. There is no doubt in my mind that it has also increased and enhanced my appreciation of tea. I wish I could figure out a way to smuggle it into the office so I could have great tea every day!
