Breville’s One-Touch Tea Maker & My Favorite David’s Teas

As a longtime lover of loose-leaf teas, I finally took the plunge and splurged on Breville’s One-Touch Tea Maker. I’ve had my eye on this baby ever since I saw it on one of Oprah’s Favorite Things shows several years ago. I know it’s an extravagant purchase, but if you drink a lot of tea as I do, and if you truly love loose-leaf teas, you may want to consider spoiling yourself with an automatic tea maker of your own.

Photo from Williams-Sonoma

I wanted to use the tea maker for a few weeks before I blogged about it, so that I could provide you with an accurate review. Since my purchase, I’ve used it every single day with many different types of teas, and in varying combinations. My simple review is that this Breville automatic tea maker is a very impressive and unique appliance and I love it!

This Breville product is really easy to use, and I’m experiencing my tea at home as I never have before. My green teas no longer taste bitter from over-steeping, and I get the perfect flavors for my favorite chai teas and custom herbal blends. I’m sure you could get a similar result with an electric tea kettle which heats the water to any temperature you want, or by using a thermometer with the water you boil on the stovetop. However, this Breville tea maker has a bit more to offer, such as keeping your tea warm for up to an hour after brewing. Additionally, the Breville can also be used as an electric hot water kettle since it heats up water very quickly with its hot water setting.

You can brew from two to five cups with this tea maker. Just fill the stainless steel tea basket with the desired amount of loose-leaf tea, and the glass carafe with water to the appropriate fill line. Filtered water is recommended. A plastic tea measuring spoon comes with the product. Place the tea basket onto a post in the glass carafe, snap the cap onto the carafe, and select the tea type on the base of the tea maker.

By pressing one button you can select from 5 different tea types: green, black, white, herbal and oolong. You can also create a custom setting for special tea blends or to suit your specific tastes. You can then select the tea strength with a second button choosing a strong, medium, mild or custom tea strength. Press the “Tea/Cancel” button to start the brewing. Once the brew temperature has been reached, the tea basket will automatically lower into the water. When the brew time has finished, the basket will automatically lift out of the water and you can enjoy your tea. You can see the actual temperatures, brew time and “time since brew” on a backlit LCD.

Power Base of Breville One-Touch Tea Maker

This Breville One-Touch Tea Maker has 3 features which I really like:

1. A 60 Minute “Keep Warm” Feature

This feature allows the brewed tea or heated water to remain warm for 60 minutes after brewing is complete. You must beware that the “Keep Warm” function automatically goes off when the glass carafe is removed from the power base.  This will happen when you lift it off the base to refill your cup of tea or pour more hot water. You can simply push the “Keep Warm” button back on whenever you wish, but you must remember that it automatically switches off when the carafe is removed from the power base.

2. An “Auto Start” Feature

This feature allows you to program the specific time when the tea maker will automatically turn on and start with a tea brewing cycle or water heating cycle. This is great if you wake up at the same time every day and want a pot of black or chai tea (or any other type of tea) waiting for you in the morning.

3. A Tea “Basket” Cycle

When activated, this feature continuously auto lifts and lowers the tea basket during the tea brewing cycle. This movement helps loosen the tea leaves within the basket, allowing the heated water to circulate freely around the tea leaves for maximum infusion. I especially love using this “basket” cycle when brewing Jasmine Pearls tea, to help open up those little pearls.

Downsides to the Breville One-Touch Tea Maker:

-The lid to the tea basket and some other parts of the tea maker are made of plastic; however, the plastic parts are BPA-free so this did not deter me from purchasing it. I can understand why it might bother others.

-As previously mentioned, the “warm” function automatically turns off when the glass carafe is lifted off the power base. I would like to see this machine made with a “warm” function that stays on when the carafe is lifted from the base, perhaps even longer than the 60 minutes.

-The tea maker makes a minimum of two cups of tea. I would like the option of making just one cup.

-You must not wash the outside of the glass carafe (just the inside), which makes cleaning it a bit tricky.

Other than that, I highly recommend the Breville One-Touch Tea Maker, especially if you are a loose-leaf tea fanatic like I am.

I purchased my Breville tea maker for $249.99 at Bed, Bath & Beyond, and I’ve also seen it stocked by Williams-Sonoma and Teavana.

I’M LOVIN’ DAVID’s TEA:

While recently strolling along Third Avenue in New York City with my good friend Sue, I discovered DAVID’s TEA. It was love at first sip of DAVID’s Mint To Be which is an organic black tea flavored with peppermint, coconut, and cornflower petals.

Since I’ve been trying to stick to organic teas lately, I’ve also been drinking DAVID’s The Spice Is Right (an organic green tea with cinnamon, orange peel and cloves) and DAVID’s The Glow (an organic caffeine-free herbal tea with cinnamon, rose hips, and nettle leaf). I love all three of these DAVID’s TEA flavors!

A couple of my favorite things about DAVID’s TEA is that they have one of the largest organic, fair trade and kosher collections in North America, and over 150 teas to choose from. They just came out with a new Spring Collection which looks nice.

*Note: If you are vegan, I would check the ingredients of your selected tea on DAVID’s website before purchasing since some blends may have non-vegan ingredients such as chocolate chips and honey. I believe that the Rooibos Birthday Cake blend contains dairy in the form of freeze-dried ice cream bits, and there may be other blends containing dairy as well.

DAVID’s TEA Spring Collection

My new teas were the perfect way to break in my new Breville automatic tea maker!

Click here to locate a store or to purchase DAVID’s TEA online.

As you may know, Vegan American Princess has written many posts about tea. Here are some of the links, in case you are interested…

Click here to learn about the health benefits of tea in Ellen’s post “Handy Guide To Healthy Tea!”

Click here for “Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s Creamy Calming Turmeric Tea” recipe.

Click here to read Debby’s post “It’s Vegan Tea Time: Vegan Scones And Debby’s Favorite Tea Pots.”

Click here to read about “The Miracles of Matcha Green Tea.”

Click here to learn “How To Make Ginger Tea” And About “The Health Benefits of Ginger.”

Click here to read about “The Tea Spot’s ‘Steep & Chill’ And My Top Loose-Leaf Tea Picks.”

Hope you have a great day!

Happy Sipping,

Debby

xoxoxo