I would like to get an automatic tea maker. My ideal product would be
fully automatic, would make tea properly, and would provide enough
setings to control both time and temperature so that I could brew the
most delicate greens and well as the heartiest pur-ehs.

Does such a beast exist?

My research turned up only two candidates that do a "true steep",
rather than drip the water thru the tea like a coffee maker. Neither
of them are perfect. One is from Adagio and the other is from
Zarafina.

The Adagio triniTea makes 32 oz. It's about $100 from Amazon or Adagio
Teas.
http://www.adagio.com/teaware/triniTEA.html?sid=70d340b7999ffe73454ec4ecace60090
http://www.amazon.com/Adagio-Teas-triniTea-Electric-32-Ounce/dp/B0011O1XOQ/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1...

It got 4 stars on Amazon from 9 reviewers and 4.5 stars on Adagio.
There is a short glitzy video on Adagio with minimal substance.

It appears to have 2 temperature settings (actual temps not disclosed)
and a variable timer (analog) from 2 to 7 minutes.

Square Peg (00) wrote:

Square Peg (00) wrote:

Square Peg (00) wrote:

I just want to add that a perfect tea
maker would also compress spent
leaves, put them in a disposal
container and then flush and scrub
the brewing vessel. All in all, it'd
be like one of those $1k+ espresso
machines, only bulkier. Except that
tea is better than espresso.

On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:03:49 -0700 (PDT), Rainy gmail.com>
wrote:

On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:08:16 -0700 (PDT), Rainy gmail.com>
wrote:

While intrepidly exploring the bowels of USENET on Thursday, August
14, 2008, Square Peg (00) rolled initiative and posted the following:

I haven't found one that thrilled me enough to buy it.

I've been pretty happy with the utiliTEA kettle from Adagio, although
it's capacity is slightly lacking. But it works well with the
ingenuiTEA, also from Adagio.

This has been the closest to automated I've gotten, although I have
been thinking about the triniTEA for the office.

But the fact that I've yet to feel compelled enough to buy it probably
says something.

On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:12:05 -0500, Derek wrote:

What is the temperature range and how many settings are there? I can't
tell from the web photo.

While intrepidly exploring the bowels of USENET on Thursday, August
14, 2008, Square Peg rolled initiative and posted the following:

On 2008-08-14, Derek wrote:

I've been drinking a lot of gongfu tea lately, and I hate the tepid
water by the last pot. So I just caved on this guy:
<http://teatreasures.com/page/Tea-Supplies/PROD/Electric-Tea-Kettles/DPROKETTLE>
after seeing it advertised on teamail.

The specified 1000W seems a little low for a kettle, but maybe it
makes it easier to hold a temperature, or maybe it's a
rebadged/lightly tweaked 230V model whose boiler is underpowered for
115V. Either way, it seems like it won't be too big a deal if I'm
heating water to sub-boiling temperatures.

My order is scheduled to arrive Monday, so I can post first
impressions then.

N.