Tea Infuser Basket

by Kevin

this week

I really want to buy at least one of these, but it's out of stock in the middle of April 2024. So why am I writing a review? Because I bought a yellow 32ounce teapot from Tealyra, and it came with exactly this tall, thin-walled, laser-pierced infuser basket. That teapot, and that (this...) infuser are at my employer office, right now, where they work very well together. The basket just fits the opening and is tall enough to almost reach the bottom of the pot. So I can dump in enough dry Gyokuro leaves to properly infuse that much water, and when they get wet and expand, there's enough room in the infuser that they are still submerged when wet. That's especially important when I do a second infusion with the same leaves in that pot.
I have at least one teapot (of different materials and shape) with roughly the same capacity at home, but it lacks an infuser and this one would be perfect for it. I also have a 20+ ounce insulated mug in which this infuser would work very well. So, I want at least two more -- I hope the TeaLyra folks have ordered more stock.

Additionally, I have several infuser baskets from several vendors. Some are wire mesh, some are laser-cut thin stainless steel cylinders. What they all have in common (besides being uniformly too short for use in several vessels that I have accumulated over the years, is that the wire or laser-cut mesh is fine enough to hold leaves, but allows broken bits to get through. This infuser basket that I'm reviewing has the finest/tiniest hole pattern of any that I've ever met, and retains very tiny pieces of leaves.
Why is that important? Well, maybe not to you, but to me, when I infuse delicate Japanese green tea leaves for the suggested (short) infusion period, I then remove the basket, because I want infusion/steeping to stop at that point. If the water in my pot or mug is full of small chunks that escaped through the basket, the water keeps 'cooking' those, and the liquor can become overdone, with tannin bitterness overshadowing delicate Sencha or Gyokuro flavo[u]r. So, for me, this basket is the best yet, and I want at least a couple more in my cupboard at home (the one I have is for that pot at the office where I go just two or three days per week, so I need one or two at home for tea-prep during the other four or five days a week when I work from home or enjoy a weekend. I don't want to carry the excellent infuser basket back and forth in my backpack and risk damage.
So, if TeaLyra gets some more, be sure to order at least one, if you drink looseleaf or flowering tea... just don't clean 'em out again, before I get a chance to order a couple more. :-)
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