h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A really pretty one. It's a bodum tea press Brilliant design- it's like a french mill coffee maker hung in a pretty round glass teapot, and it lets you steep as much leaves (or bags) of tea as strong as you like, then press down the plunger and seal away the leaves so they don't over-steep and make it bitter. Super-easy to clean, and it came with a cup warmer! Little heat plate that plugs in, works for the whole pot or any mug of hot liquid. Super cool!

I wonder if the Starbucks travel press mug would work for tea as well?

What a beautiful teapot! I'm so jealous!

I've seen one of those! Yes, and tried it, too, now I come to think of it. In some cafes the tea is served in that kind of pot. It works great! Looks good, too. Allows you to see that lovely golden tea-colour...

It's so user-friendly, so easy to control the process! I like very un-bitter tea, but not weak tea, soo, I can put the right ammount of loose tea (Twinings of London in the tin is what I'm using- I like it much better than the World Market bulk I was using before) to get it a good strength with only a 3 minute brewing time. The instructions say the pot also works with teabags, as long as you're careful not to get the bag bits caught under the plunger. Kind of silly to use teabags, though, since they're already self-contained, and the whole purpose of the tea-pluger is to stop the brewing process... which for a teabag is accomplished by pulling it out. Oh, anybody heard of the newest developement in individually-packaged tea-brewing technology? A man who didn't like what tea-bags did to the taste of his tea, but wanted the convenience, invented an aluminum tea-stick... individual perferated sticks with tea inside... like disposable tea-balls. Wild, eh?

Anything for a little less washing up...?

My mom found them online when she was searching for something; I don't know what. They're also quite expensive, otherwise I might've got some to try (er, asked mom to get some to try... hehe... I'm still broke.)

They don't sound exactly environmentally friendly, do they? But it's an interesting idea...

That's what I thought... unless you emptied out the used tea sticks and recycled them with your soda cans. Feh. I like fiddling with tea strainers fine anyway... tea tastes best after going through the whole process, as a break from a fast paced day. Leave the tea-as-a-convenience-on-the-run to Nestea and their "Brisk" blue and yellow cans.

I agree! Tea making sholdn't be too fast. I've always been fascinated by Japanese tea ceremonies...