Breville One-Touch Tea Maker

For years, there have been people who have wanted to brew tea with the convenience of an automatic coffeemaker. The Zarafina Tea Maker Suite and Adagio's triniTEA Electric Tea Maker have provided solid solutions for many people.

However, for design-centric tea drinkers and kitchen-gadget aficionados, Breville's gorgeous, reliable One-Touch Tea Maker is the clear winner of the automatic tea maker category.

A Tea Maker Designed for the Eyes

It's undeniable that Breville's latest tea gadget is a real looker. A Schott glass kettle made in Germany, a heat-resistant acrylic handle and a stainless steel basket and body effortlessly exude modern style and durability. Even the motions of the tea maker are fluid and smooth, making the very experience of brewing the tea as pleasing to the eye as the static brewer.

My only complaint is that the clear plastic tea scoop that comes with the brewer is a little cheesy, but it's not as though you couldn't replace it with a better one.

Overall, the Breville One Touch Tea Maker is a gorgeous example of a kitchen gadget designed to look great in your kitchen.

A Tea Maker Designed for the Palate

Customizable settings and a range of presets make this a convenient option for the "push and go" brewer and the tea drinker with fairly precise brewing specifications.

Marko Goodwin

Breville's tea maker doesn't stop at looking good. It's also very good at performing its core function -- making great tea.

Any tea connoisseur will tell you that great tea brewing is an art and a science. While it's no gong fu master, Breville lets you easily combine their recommended presets (which include white, green, oolong, black and herbal, and are fairly reasonable for the most part) with your own preferences. You can customize temperatures between 160 degrees Fahrenheit and 205 degrees Fahrenheit in five degree increments, or you can set it to reach a rolling boil (212 degrees)... or you can switch it to Celsius and go from there. You can also customize your brewing time (in 30-second increments) and your brew strength (strong, medium or mild).

In short, if you're OK with five-degree increments and 30-second increments, then this is about the most customizable you'd ever need an automatic tea maker to be.

A Tea Maker Designed for Convenience

There were a few things that I found to be especially convenient about the Breville One Touch Tea Maker:

• It can be set to automatically brew tea at any time, so you can set it before bed and awake to a fresh pot of tea.
• It can keep tea hot for up to an hour after brewing with a "keep warm" feature.
• It brings water to a boil within a few minutes and it doubles as a hot water kettle for French press coffee and other uses.
• It has a simple, intuitive interface that's easy to learn without an instruction manual.
• It beeps three times when it's done brewing, so you know your tea is ready.
• It can brew 500 mL (two cups) up to 41 ounces (about 1200 mL or five cups) of tea, making it suitable for high-volume tea drinkers, couples, roommates, small families and small offices.

Cons to Buying the Breville One Touch Tea Maker

Stylish, convenient and great at brewing tea... the Breville One Touch Tea Maker might become a classic kitchen gadget.

Marko Goodwin

There are a few drawbacks to the Breville One-Touch Tea Maker.

• For casual tea drinkers, the price tag may not be worth it.
• People with arthritis may have trouble opening the magnetically locking tea brewing basket.
• The short cord isn't suited to all kitchen layouts (especially those of older kitchens), and it may require an extension cord.
• The five-degree and 30-second increment custom settings may not meet the standards of some hardcore tea drinkers.
• The perforated brewing basket and second filter catch most of the teas' leaves, but may not catch all the particles of herbs like rooibos.
• For tea drinkers who delight in the ritual of tea brewing, any kind of automatic brewer would be a poor choice.

Despite these potential drawbacks, the Breville One Touch Tea Maker is a fantastic product. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves kitchen gadgets or wants a convenient brewing method for the home or office.

A tester of this product was supplied by the manufacturer for review. After review, it was returned to the manufacturer.

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Keurig B155 Coffee Maker

Due to their ease of use and single-serving nature, Keurig brewers have become popular in homes, office break rooms, customer waiting areas and other places where people want quick, convenient coffee, tea and cocoa that suits their personal flavor and caffeine preferences. The Keurig B155 is intended for homes and small-to-medium offices.

Basic Features of the Keurig B155

The Keurig B155 is a single-serving, automatic home or office coffeemaker with an interactive touch-screen and easy to remove / clean components. It features neutral colors and a fairly modern, clean aesthetic.

Pros to the Keurig B155

Each Keurig B155 coffeemaker comes with clear, easy-to-use instructions and ample product literature.

Marko Goodwin

There are many advantages to selecting a Keurig B155 for home or office use. These include:

• An easy-to-use, full-color, interactive display screen.
• Multiple language settings (English, French and Spanish).
• The ability to brew four different drink sizes.
• A quick brew time of about 30 seconds to one minute.
• An ability to rapidly heat a relatively large water reservoir (about four minutes to fully warm a reservoir filled with cool tap water).
• A quiet brew cycle.
• A comprehensive user guide and product literature that includes flavor guides for extra-bold, dark-roast, medium-roast, light-roast, flavored coffee, decaf coffee, organic/Fair Trade coffee, tea and hot cocoa.
• A range of compatible brands and beverages, including Green mountain Coffee, Dietrich, Gloria Jean's Coffee & Tea, Timothy's, Van Houten, Tully's, Coffee People, Newman's Own (organic), Caribou Coffee, Emeril's Gourmet Coffee, Bellaccino, Celestial Seasonings, Bigelow and Twinings.
• During testing, there was no discernible flavor residue when switching between coffee and tea flavors.

Cons to the Keurig B155

Despite all its good points, there are several potential cons to selecting a Keurig B155 coffee brewing system.

• Keurig brewers require the use of Keurig products, or "K-cups." Although the selection of available K-cups is wide, it may not encompass all your favorite coffees and teas.
• If you insert a new K-cup into the Keurig brewer and leave it for a minute before brewing, the brewer "forgets" that the fresh K-cup has been inserted and will prompt you to add a new one. However, this glitch can be corrected by opening and shutting the K-cup latch again.
• Those interested in greening their coffee habit may find the use of a single-serve package for each cup of coffee to be objectionable.
• Sharp parts and occasional drips of hot liquids may make it inappropriate for use around unsupervised children.
• Some users have complaints that the unit size is too large or bulky.
• Although there are multiple language settings, there is no way to make selections using metric measurements.

Overall Recommendation

I would recommend the Keurig B155 to small offices. It allows for quick, quiet brewing of a wide range of coffees and it has a large enough water reservoir to prevent the "It's your turn to refill it" argument from becoming a major problem.

I would also recommend it to offices with customer or patient waiting areas, such as doctors offices. It's a good way for your customers to enjoy the beverage of their choosing while they wait, and it is intuitive enough that most first-time users can figure it out very quickly.

This item was provided by the manufacturer for testing and then returned to the manufacturer.

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Dolce Gusto Coffee Maker

The Bottom Line

A single-serve coffee maker that can quickly brew up coffee, latte or cappuccino right at home. Capsules make for easy and mess-free use.

Pros

• Fast
• Easy to use
• Produces a rich crema with each cup

Cons

• Can only be used with capsules

Description

• Comes in black, red or white
• Produces 15 bars of pressure
• Operates with capsules for regular coffee, latte, machiatto, cappuccino, espresso and chococino.
• Coffee or milk capsules can be purchased online
• Machines and capsules can be purchased at Macy's stores, or Bed Bath and Beyond.
• Costs around $150

Guide Review - Dolce Gusto Coffee Maker

The Dolce Gusto has a very retro look about it, with a round water canister in the back and a big chrome lever on the top. It's a single-serve coffee maker, meaning you brew up one cup at a time rather than a pot.

It's very easy to use, though it's not as automatic as some other machines where you just push a button. With the Dolce Gusto, you start the brewing process with the lever, and have to manually turn it off when you are happy with the amount brewed. It does offer you greater flexibility and control over how you make your drinks though.

Using the Dolce Gusto is simple. Place a capsule in the holder and lock it in place, move the lever to the "hot" setting and pressurized hot water is produced almost immediately. There is a cold water setting as well, to be used with their iced cappuccino capsules. When you've brewed enough coffee, you put the lever back and remove the capsule. If you are making a drink like a cappuccino or a latte, you then pop in a milk capsule and top off your cup with some rich steamed milk. Much faster and easier than a drip coffee maker.

The capsules are colour-coded for your convenience, though the ingredients in them may be identical. I noticed, for example, that the latte milk capsule is the same as the chococino milk capsule. I found the coffee was very bold and well-flavoured, and the milk was nice and foamy. Overall, the Dolce Gusto was an impressive coffee maker that produced some great drinks quickly and without any fuss.

You can see photos of the Dolce Gusto in action, over in the preparation section.

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