Okay, so I’m doing this thing where I cut tea out of my diet on weekends because I feel like I drink waaaay too much and too much of one thing is actually bad for you, even if said thing is healthy!
Ahh well. I found myself on steepster and remembered that I never reviewed this.
I wanted to review it the second I got it, but I felt like I needed my time with my timolino first to actally give it a decent rating.
The pros:
- Super compact
- Super gorgeous
- The seal is great! I haven’t had it leak yet (except once when I took the rubber bit out of the top and shook it and made a mess on my desk…)
- The compartment under the lid is great! I’m on the go/hurring to get to class a lot so sometimes I don’t have enough time to brew and add milk/sugar/lemon/whatever the heck I want to make the tea taste good to my taste. So if tea needs lemon, I just take a lemon slice and stick it under my lid! I haven’t tried sneaking milk under the lid, but it does look like a decent seal so I’ll probably try that next time :)
- It keeps my tea HOT. I was on my way to San Diego (about 2 hours away and it was freezing cold outside) and I legit didn’t have time to make tea. I boiled water and poured it into my timolino before hopping into the car. I fell asleep on the road, woke up in SD and brewed my tea and actually burned my tongue. Finished half the cup, went to the event, 2 hours later it was still hot! Not hot enough to burn my tongue, but hot enough to fog my glasses. So yes, very impressed with this wee little thing!
The cons:
- It’s a pain to wash. Handwash only and my hands don’t reach the bottom of it so I have to stick a wooden spoon into it and swish it around
- There’s a lot of parts to it. The actual thermos bit, the basket, the thing with the sip hole stuff, the lid and the cover of the compartment. Luckily I haven’t lost any parts of it yet :)
- The sip holes are nice, but they’re a bit big? I rarely brew with my basket anymore. I usually just brew 12oz of tea beforehand and pour that into my timolino. If I were to brew loose leaf, I’d use one of my disposable tea filters. If I did use the basket, I would have a sachet with me because that would make life easier instead of trying to dig the sachet out of freakin hot water with bare hands.
- THE TEA STAINS UGH. But that’s one thing you can’t escape! But that’s how you know the timolino is being loved :)
All in all, the pros most definitely outweigh the cons. I would definitely recommend this to anyone on the go, and especially to college students like me who need tea in class. And you sit at the front of the classroom, brew your tea during lecture, and have the professor stare at you and you can feel your classmates eyes just staring at you from behind. Oh it’s great :)
This stuff is AMAZING at getting rid of tea stains – no scrubbing just add some to your travel mug fill with hot water and leave it for a bit….
http://steepster.com/teaware/mandala-tea/44884-smart-soak
Oh gosh THANK YOU!
I have so many things that have tons of stains. From strainers to mugs to everything in between. Definitely going to toss that into my next Mandala order. Thank you tons!!