Review on 🍵 Discover the OXO BREW Twisting Tea Ball Infuser for Perfectly Infused Tea by Melanie Hartmann

OXO hasn't finished some prototypes. While this is the most convenient single cup brewer I've ever used, it needs improvement. This review focuses on using loose black tea, which is not very good. Used carefully, that's what makes a good ball. It's easy to scoop tea and seal the bead, it works well as a tea strainer, and it's easy to clean. Here's what I think needs improvement. The ball is too small for the amount of tea I want to use in the cup. When I use a 1/2 scoop of tea, it expands enough to fill the scoop making the brew less efficient and making it harder to rotate the scoop opening to clean it. It's easy to put less tea in a large bowl, but you can't expand the bowl if it's too small. The handle is said to have a latch that properly closes the 2 halves of the ball after having tee in it. However, the mount is so flimsy that it's easy to close the sphere, causing the edges to move slightly. I had to look closely to notice the misalignment. If the edges are misaligned, some of the tea leaves will leak out of the bead and into the cup when brewing. This problem would also be solved if the two halves of the ball overlap more when the ball is closed. Since alignment is critical, make sure the leaves don't run out of the ball. This may be one of the reasons fine tea consumers report leaves seeping into the cup — a slight shift causes even larger leaves to spill out as they expand during the brewing process. Ball, increases edge overlap when the ball is closed and provides correct positioning and strong support when the ball is in the closed position. I'd happily pay 1.5x-2x more for a really well executed version of this device, so it only gets a 'cool' recommendation.