Tea drinking in the United States has blossomed in the last few years to become almost as popular as coffee drinking. Coffee drinkers have enjoyed the modern convenience of having automated coffee makers for decades. On the other hand, tea drinkers have not enjoyed anything even close to this, unless you consider an electric tea kettle for heating water to be equivalent. Some people have used their coffee makers to brew tea instead, but with mixed results. With the explosion of new tea types available in grocery stores and online and the different brewing conditions suggested for black, oolong, green, red, white and herbal teas, such simple water heating devices seem inadequate.
The Zarafina Tea maker Suite is an automatic tea maker that attempts to bring the tea making experience on par with current coffee making standards. With this tea maker, you can fill it with water, add your tea of choice, turn it on and walk away until the tea is brewed. The Zarafina tea maker suite consists of a 2-cup ceramic teapot, 2 tea mugs, a tea scoop, a serving tray and the electric tea maker unit. This tea maker promises to brew “the perfect cup” of tea. To this end, it was thoughtfully designed to take the guesswork out of tea making by providing simple, user-selected, slide settings to account for the type of tea being brewed (black, oolong, green, white or herbal), the form of the tea being used (bag or loose) and the brew strength desired (strong, medium or mild). Other automatic tea makers exist, such as the Adagio triniTEA electric maker, Sunbeam HTM5 tea drop, and the Teavana auto tea, but feature for feature, they do not come close to the Zarafina Tea Maker Suite.
In the Zarafina tea maker, the tea remains isolated from the water by floating until the correct temperature of water is achieved. At that point, heated water enters the tea-containing basket and it sinks to the bottom to initiate the brew. The water is maintained at the correct temperature by heat pulses throughout the duration of the brew process. Once the correct tea strength is achieved, the tea is dispensed into the ceramic teapot and the tea maker turns off. The ceramic teapot keeps the tea warm for a while, but no warming plate feature exists.
I was skeptical of the necessity of having an automatic tea maker, since I have always simply heated water in a microwave or on the stove and brewed my teas as desired. Of course, frequently, I would forget to remove my tea from the water and end up with a very bitter, horrible cup of tea. Perhaps the most finicky of teas to brew are the white teas because they require lower water temperatures and shorter brew times. Hence, despite their health benefits, I avoided most white teas because of the bitter consequence of forgetfulness during their brew. After using the Zarafina Tea Maker suite, I cannot imagine how I ever made tea without it. I enjoy drinking all sorts of teas and tried out every setting because I could not believe it really could make “the perfect cup” of every tea type. I am especially excited that I can finally enjoy my white tea collection with brewing ease! I am impressed with this tea maker’s performance and clean-up is fast and simple—just a rinse with plain water is usually sufficient, but occasionally a quick rinse with soapy water to remove oils is needed.
Could it be improved? This depends upon your viewpoint. The two features that seemed noticeably missing were a timer and a warming plate. Of course, true tea connoisseurs would agree that neither of these features is necessary, since water should be tapped fresh before making tea and brewed tea should never be continuously heated.
The price was a bit more than I expected to pay, but in line with similar types of units that do not offer as many setting choices. After using it for the last 2 months, I have been quite satisfied with its purchase and would highly recommend it!
