Grosche

Bought at a local market. Very fruity tasty, slightly sour.

I love chai, and I love floral teas (done right, anyway), so this should be a hit, right?

Wrong.

The spice is too weak to be a chai I prefer, but still strong enough that it overwhelms the floral notes. Overall, I found this to be a very weak tea. It smelled stronger than it tasted and it definitely didn’t hold up to the usual “pinch of sugar and splash of milk” treatment that I generally give chai.

I’m lowering the score here a bit, for one reason only: the floppy lid was actually very, very annoying. One cannot spoon out of a lightweight tin or bag and hold open the lid at the same time, so I was having to spoon the dry leaves into a little shot glass, then hold open the lid and pour the leaves from the shot glass into the infuser. Not great.

My husband fixed mine by shaving down the rounded end of the tab (where you put your thumb to lever open) with a Dremel until it would sit on the handle below without flopping closed. (But I’m afraid I’m making it sound simpler than it was; he also had to somehow hand grind/adjust the little pieces … um, “legs”? I don’t know. The bits that go through the holes in the lid to keep it attached to the body. For some reason I didn’t quite catch.)

Aside from this, I’m quite happy with it, and yes — it definitely cleared my counter of all the bits of paraphernalia, as I use this 95% of the time, and also find it super easy to clean. So, Mission Accomplished. With a bit of a hiccup.

So: Size/shape = A+; Materials = A+; Filter = A+; Performance = A+; Lid design = D

I’d give the lid an “F,” but I think it’s actually very cleverly shaped to keep the condensation from dripping onto your hand or the outside the container when raised.

So, really this is actually a very, very good item … mostly . If only it weren’t so tediously aggravating with the lid. My husband took it off to work on it, so that is one possible solution — just take it off, and lift it on and off as needed. Also it’s maaaaybe possible that mine was a bit defective, and most don’t have the same problem. I didn’t see any malformation though.

¯\(ツ)/¯

This is from the Canadian tea company, Grosche (which also makes a 1000 ml size of this model), but I actually bought mine from amazon.de. I only received it today, but here are my considerations and initial thoughts:

I spent quite a while checking out the various gravity infusers, and most get pretty high marks, so people seem to like the concept. I have mixed feelings because I’ve been trying to consciously reduce the amount of plastics in our life, and this seemed gimmicky to me. What is the difference if you steep in your teapot and pour through a strainer, or steep in this and place over the cup? I’m still not 100% sure, but as my “tea area” in our small kitchen has become more and more cluttered with tea tins, tea bags, teaspoons, teapots, cup infusers, teapot infusers, strainers, things to put infusers in after using, things to put strainers on after using, etc., I became more inclined to check it out.

Who knows? Either I will still have all that … plus new plastic gimmicky thingy, or I’ll get most of my kitchen counter back.

So, onward; from what I observed from reading ratings, watching videos, and thinking about it, there were a few things I decided I wanted.

1, of course, was BPA-free plastic for the entire construction (Grosche company note on that below •).

2 was a wider design, rather than tall and narrower, to give more room for the tea leaves to swim and dance. Or whatever it is they do.

3 was an easy-to-remove filter mechanism, and easy to clean design

4 was a lid that would stay open on its own

I think this model satisfies considerations #1-3 very well; #4, not so much. It is a floppy tea lid, so I do need to have my thumb on the tab to keep it open, which can get awkward.

I’m very happy with the ease of removing the filter, which is very, very painless. I’ve seen videos of people who had finally removed the filter from their gravity infusers to do a thorough cleaning and actually broken the device because it was so complicated / fussy to remove. This one is easy-peasy. I should also mention that the filter is wire mesh (good! I did not want plastic) and super fine, so stray particles should not be a problem.

I was concerned about cleaning. The site says to spoon out the used tea leaves and then rinse. [frowny-face emoji] Yeah, no, I do not want to stand over the bin slowly spooning out tea leaves with one hand while holding open the lid of the infuser with the other, and the lid of the bin with my third hand. Instead I fill the device with water, pour out over a sieve, and dump the leaves from the sieve into the bin. Swish sieve and device, and done. This works nicely. Well, on my first day, anyway, but I don’t see any reason for this to change.

So far, I like it! Will it be the catalyst that declutters my mess? We shall see! I’m going to try using mostly this and putting other things away except for the particular times I want to use a pot or a cup infuser for whatever reason. Our kitchen cabinets are too few and bursting full, so my husband is even going to make a special little shelf for the Aberdeen, so it will be off the kitchen counter, yet easily at hand without digging through a pile of stuff.

Other thoughts: it’s very nice to see the leaves through the transparent container, which might be a big part of the popularity of these items. Very satisfying.

But, I wish there were a measure for milliliters on the side for pouring in the exact amount of water. I can just pour the exact amount I need for a cup into my kettle first, but I want to be able to swish my cup and the infuser with hot water before steeping, so need that extra bit of hot water from the kettle. (Yeah, we don’t have hot water on demand from the tap; it takes a little bit for the hot water heater to get it to temperature.) I can also measure hot water from the kettle into a small pitcher or glass measuring cup and then pour into the Aberdeen, but now we’re getting into more complications and mess that I was hoping to avoid.

I’ll learn the right amount for my usual tea cup and be able to eyeball it, but it would be nice to have the measure for other size tea cups, making for two cups, etc.

• Material info from Grosche: “The only tea infuser and teapot with 100% BPA-free Tritan construction on the market today! Other brands use either poly-carbonate which contains BPA or cheap poly-propylene in their filter mechanisms.”

Cold-brewed this today. It was kinda meh. The jasmine was a bit strong. Ah well. Sipdown.

I have liked my ceramic coffee glasses greatly, but I love the glass one even more. I like how it looks and when I am making Tea i can see how strong it is getting and get it just right. I am planing on getting more of them soon

I love this tea! It is delicious but also pleasing to watch bloom and works well for serving to guests. Its a perfect combination with any GROSCHE glass teapot because the teapot shows the bloom and is very pretty. Go to shopgrosche.com to buy your blooming tea and teapot and be as pleased as I was!

shared this with my friend today and she enjoyed it so much that i left her with the rest of it. I enjoyed playing with this one while i had it especially since the flavours in it are so genuine. Thanks from both of us for sharing this with me TeaFairy!

when theteafairy gives you directions, you listen. Must.Not.Brew.Hot. So i cold brewed this because after all, I wouldn’t want to risk the tea tasting like feet (there’s a story there for another time) :) I’ve never had tea from this company so it was nice to receive this in my swap with the teafairy. This is a very lightly flavoured tea that really does have a natural lime taste. I’m going to have to play with this a little more but it’s tasty! especially with just a pinch of sweetner added to it! thank you teafairy!