Tea is an amazing drink used to enhance health and soothe our minds in times of stress. Steeping a warm cup of tea in the morning or preparing a glass of iced tea can give us the hydration and energy necessary to face the day. Furthermore, tea is an extremely versatile drink, with dozens of plants providing leaves to generate unique and exotic tea flavors.
Whether you choose the common Camellia sinensis plant or the brow-raising Clitoria ternatea flower, you can steep a cup of tea that will keep you energized and feeling good. While tea is an exceptional way to start the day, it is not always possible to take the time necessary to steep a fresh cup, regardless of temperature. Most people have high-pressure careers that force them to forgo certain morning rituals to arrive at the office on time, making it impossible to steep a cup of tea.
While tea does not always take a long time to steep, sometimes we have to do it on the go to avoid missing important appointments. While the traditional method for steeping tea involves tea bags, some people prefer a more traditional approach and employ tea leaves instead. This process takes a little longer since people use tea infusers to steep their beverages, compared to the more streamlined process with tea bags.
Carrying an infuser to work can be a hassle, so portable infusers have become popular with avid tea drinkers. The question is: which of these portable infusers are good according to 2023 reviews?
What is a Tea Infuser?
If you are not well-versed in the world of tea, you might not be familiar with what a tea infuser is or how it affects the steeping process. Typically, people purchase tea bags placed in hot water and allowed to soak until the leaves flavor the water and infuse it with the associated nutrients. This form of steeping tea is not complicated, but it can take some time to finish and keep us from leaving promptly to make appointments. Nevertheless, it is considered one of the quicker methods than certain alternatives.
Some people prefer a traditional approach and forgo tea bags in favor of loose-leaf tea. In the earlier days of Japanese and Chinese society, loose-leaf tea was both the primary method and part of a ceremonial steeping process. Modern tea drinkers are generally averse to loose-leaf tea because the leaves remain in the cup once the steeping process is complete, which can be unpleasant if you prefer your drinks to be completely liquid.
Fortunately, modern culinary technology has led to several tools that allow us to separate tea leaves from the water. Most people believe a simple kitchen strainer is sufficient since it separates solids from liquids by design. However, there are products specifically created to keep tea leaves separate from the water as you steep it. These devices are called tea infusers, which store loose tea leaves and are submerged in water, acting as a reusable alternative to a tea bag.
The first tea infuser device was created in the early 19th century, but the shifting needs of tea drinkers forced the device to evolve to accommodate a fast-paced lifestyle. Nowadays, there are portable tea infusers that allow us to steep our tea while we are driving or at work. Most of these portable infusers also double as a cup, allowing us to immediately enjoy our drink as soon as it is ready without having to find a container.
As with most products in modern society, countless brands are trying to capitalize on the benefits of these infusers, and there is no shortage of them. As of 2023, dozens of infuser brands have been met with varying degrees of approval. The question we have to ask is: which of them can be called "the best?"
Option A: Adagio Teas Iced IngenuiTEA
Adagio Teas is a little-known tea vendor that started as a small, family-operated business focused on providing gourmet tea without needing a full restaurant. The company was founded in 1999 in Chicago, Illinois, by Michael Cramer, who was inspired by his mother to create the company. Since then, Adagio Teas has sold multiple types of tea and accessories designed to help customers enjoy the drink.
Among their catalog of products is their Iced IngenuiTEA infuser, which is worthy of note due to its distinguishing characteristic. Most infusers on the market are designed to produce a single serving of tea (hot or cold), but Adagio Teas' infuser is designed to steep more. The pitcher totals 16 ounces, allowing a single use of the infuser to steep 2 cups of iced tea with a single use. They also offer a larger version that can hold 28 ounces, allowing 3 and ½ cups.
The Adagio Teas Iced IngenuiTEA infuser retails for $24.00 for the 16-ounce version and $34.00 for the 28-ounce version. Both can be purchased on Adagio Teas' website and are well-reviewed by their consumers. According to Google and Amazon reviews, the Iced IngenuiTEA averages 4.8 stars out of 5, giving an incredibly high score for a product of this nature.
That said, this product has only 161 reviews on Google, so the aggregate score might be somewhat skewed. Adagio Teas has since come out with the IngenuiTEA 2, but most reviews indicate the new version does not make any significant changes beyond the new look.
Option B: Tea Forté KATI Steeping Cup with Infuser
Tea Forté Inc. is a larger tea company based in Maynard, Massachusetts. The company was originally founded in 2003 by Peter Hewitt, who launched the company in Concord, Massachusetts. Hewitt graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and specialized in designing products that appealed to our sense of aesthetics. Despite his focus on design, Hewitt developed an interest in tea and launched a stylized line of tea accessories based on Japanese tea ceremonies (which involved loose-leaf tea).
Tea Forté Inc. has grown since its initial founding and has continued to develop tea accessories that combine form and function to, per the website, "elevate a cup of tea into an extraordinary experience for all of your senses." One of Tea Forté Inc.'s latest additions is their KATI brand steeping cups that have an infuser built into them. Each cup is made from ceramic and has one of 16 designs painted onto it, reminiscent of Japanese culture and environments.
These designs include:
- Jubilee
- Paradis
- Hanami
- Blanche
- Lotus
- Noir
- Cherry Blossom
- Wellbeing
- Fleur
- Warming Joy
- Forté
- Chakra
- Poppy Fields
- Jardin
- Bleu
- Soleil
Each KATI steeping cup can produce 12 ounces of tea, allowing for a little over a single cup. The infuser basket is made of stainless steel, making it slightly more durable than the cup. Each cup also comes with a lid to make the drink easier to travel with compared to a normal mug. Each cup, regardless of design, retails for $22.00 a piece, and the lid can be replaced for $5.00 should yours break or get lost.
Like Adagio Teas' product, the KATI steeping cups are highly praised by the customers, who enjoy the aesthetic and the ability to steep their tea directly into their cup. The cups have an average of 4.8 stars out of 5 on Google reviews and 4.7 out of 5 on Amazon. Like the IngenuiTEA infuser, the number of reviews for this product on Google is low, though much lower than those for the Adagio Teas product. There are only 53 reviews on Google, which might make the aggregate score somewhat unreliable. As a result, Tea Forté Inc. has become a strong contender in the world of tea infusers and cups.
Option C: Teami Tea Tumbler
Despite the name, our Teami Tea Tumbler is an infuser with a removable infuser mesh built into the cup and ready for easy removal. While the other infusers discussed thus far are portable, though the Adagio Teas' IngenuiTEA is a little harder to transport, the Teami Tea Tumbler has the added bonus of functioning like a water bottle.
The Teami Tea Tumbler is made from BPA-free plastic with a metal mesh insert designed to separate the tea leaves from the water. Our infuser can brew hot or cold tea with a maximum capacity of 20 ounces, meaning it can produce a little over 2 cups of tea in a single use. The bottle style ensures you can transport your tea wherever you need to go since the bottle's lid can seal completely.
The Teami Tea Tumbler is one of our best-selling products and retails for $29.99 on our website. It is also one of our best-reviewed products and has a 4.8 out of 5 stars rating on Google Reviews. On Amazon, it has 4.4 stars out of 5, and 4.9 out of 5 on our main website. Unlike the previous entries in this article, the number of Google reviews for the Teami Tea Tumbler is much higher, with a total of 1,293 reviews generating the aggregate score.
That said, we will not focus too heavily on this product since it is one of ours. Nevertheless, it is a high-quality product that can provide the same benefits as any other infuser on the market while offering total portability.
Option D: Firebelly Tea Stop-Infusion Travel Mug
Firebelly Tea was founded by a man named David Segal, a co-founder of DAVIDsTea, and Harley Finkelstein, the president of Shopify. Segal's motivations for founding Firebelly Tea are due to his love for tea in general, while Finkelstein provided the online resources Segal needed to create an online shop. Firebelly Tea operates in the United States and Canada, though its headquarters are located in Ottawa.
Unfortunately, there is not much information about the company's origins beyond the 'About Us' page on their website. Nevertheless, Firebelly Tea, like all the companies we have discussed in this article, specializes in selling tea and tea accessories, including infusers. In this instance, we are focusing on Firebelly Tea's stop-infusion travel mug, which functions similarly to the Teami Tea Tumbler discussed in the previous section.
The Firebelly Tea stop-infusion travel mug is made from stainless steel and comes in a few different colors. That said, it has a 16-ounce limit, meaning it can make exactly 2 cups of tea in a single use.
Firebelly Tea's infuser retails for $39.95, making it one of the most expensive infusers on this list. Despite the price tag, the product seems to have a reliable track record with users and boasts an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars on Google Reviews. That said, the number of reviews surrounding this particular infuser is minimal since there are only 23, making this one of the least reviewed options.
Finding the Right Blend
Tea infusers have become an almost essential accessory for tea enthusiasts worldwide, especially considering the on-the-go nature of most modern careers. While these products might seem like niche specialties, they enable us to steep tea outside our homes without compromising the flavor or quality. Portable infusers are only one facet of this type of product, and several infusers enable us to steep loose-leaf tea as effectively as we would a tea bag.
The problem is that the sheer number of products on the market can make it difficult to identify the best choice, and the cost of these products makes the wrong choice a big problem. Fortunately, there is plenty of information to help determine which products are viable. Aside from an infuser, the biggest challenge is finding a quality tea blend to use it with.
We at Teami can help with both issues since we have dedicated a large portion of our company to serving our "Communitea." We offer various tea blends using leaves from multiple plants to provide the most exhilarating and natural tea-drinking experience. We already covered our infuser, but the Teami Tea Tumbler perfectly matches our tea blends. We encourage you to visit our website and peruse our catalog directly so you can make an informed decision. After all, finding the right blend is a Teami effort.