Rate my App: Tea for iPhone--getting quantitative about tea

Congrats on the great job, siglesias. I'm buying it right now, and I'm looking forward to hearing what kind of market traction you get!

Also, at a meta level, at some point I'd like to learn more about how iPhone app developers manage so much functionality for so little real-estate. There was a lot going on in this app for only 6-10 very simple screens. Did you mock it up on paper first? Wire frame it? Use an online tool? Details here would be interesting.

I know nothing about tea, but I know I could appreciate it. If you made it even easier for me to get good tea, I think that'd be a great feature. In addition, your app would know what I'd ordered, and you could leverage that info. Definitely not a MVP feature, but definitely one that I think could be useful and profitable.

As it stands, it's a great looking app and I think it's a great example of finding a niche and creating something compelling to serve it.

Edit: I just noticed the adagio teas coupon on your site. While this may be a simple affiliate link, maybe you've already begun trying to forge a partnership with them whereby you could offer in-app purchasing of their products (or a selected subset). Hopefully so!

Second, a list of (hopefully helpful) criticisms:

(1) Re: Intro video. Way too long. Don't need to see the face of the founder. How can you use an ordinary hot water heater and discuss water temperature? At least pretend to stick in a thermometer -- or, better, use a Zojirushi or equivalent.

(2) Should probably have preset times/temperatures for different tea types that can be edited, to facilitate data entry (maybe you do, but I didn't quite pick up on this in the video).

(3) Perhaps I'm the only one, but I find data entry (including tasting notes) to be a major pain on an iPhone. I used to keep my cheese tasting notes on mine but gave up since I hated doing it that way. I suspect that people will not continue using the app if they find the most useful features require significant data entry.

(4) Key and very useful feature(brewing timer) is already included as part of the free Teavana app. Also the Teavana app has nice music while you brew.

(5) Killer feature would be tea ratings and the ability to share. You might also want to rate them based on vendor. Or, potentially very profitably, allow direct buying with the purchase automatically imported into the app. That's what my app was structured around. To get a more long-term hold you probably need to "go social" at some point.

(6) Hardcore tea snobs (this term should probably include myself) frequently brew tea in different pots, vessels. You might consider including this -- and obviously you would use different amounts of tea depending on the vessel.

Best of luck! Definitely a huge improvement over what else is out there -- and personally hope it makes it into an app not tied to iOS.

About me: I got into tea while working and studying in China and Japan and once built a (skeletal) Rails app for rating tea that I never released. I still think this could be profitable but am now instead n grad school reading about Tea -- and have also identified several favorite vendors such that I feel that I have everything I need at the moment.

I want this app!

I'm assuming it comes with sane defaults, does it also allow tweaking the settings to get the steeping times and such perfectly to taste? What about sharing and cross-comparing these with friends?

1) Inventory tracking seems odd to me, unless its primarily to brag to other tea drinkers. I mean I see my tea every day, I know how much I have.

2) I really like the brewing tracking/suggesting. The amount of tea, length of steep, and temperature all make a big difference and it can be hard to remember which caused which flavors.

3) I'm okay with making my tea drinking schedule/habits public, but I'm not sure I really want to push each one out to facebook/twitter.

So in conclusion, my main enthusiasm for the app would be my ability to log detailed brewing trials, and to see what others have come up with. I would worry others might be taking loose or incorrect measurements though, so I'd want some assurance any public notes were somewhat carefully done.

Green tea requires cooler water than black is that something a person new to tea will be shown or is all data the user enters via trial and error?

If it's pre-determined what about mixing different teas which is a common thing to do if the brew settings per tea type are set can other users submit new mixes 10% green, 90% black and say use X grams and brew for Y minutes?

FYI I just posted to Reddit/r/Tea too.

It's a really nice looking app, both aesthetically and functionally. If I drank tea I'm sure I'd use it.

Also, while I conceptually like the features the UI isn't especially aesthetically pleasing. I would also recommend adding the preferred units to a preferences page and eliminating that from the brew page.

Other than that, looks very nice!

Just a minor issue I noticed: in iPad's Safari the video is stretched (it extends beyond the bounds of the background book) and as it plays your site constantly flickers and reloads itself.

screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/EQyRU.png

What would push it over the top, for me, would be if you offered a thermometer like this one:

http://hmb-tec.de/iPhoneApps/BBQ-Thermometer.html

that plugs into the headphone jack. Ideally yours would be lighter weight and would float on water, but the peripheral exists already.

This would add great functionality; it would now become 'perfect tea. anywhere. anytime.' The phone would chime when the water is ready, then simply pour, the phone chimes again, tea. Doesn't matter if you're by a campfire, in an office, in front of a stove; perfect tea.

Make it an attractive peripheral that matches the rest of the Apple way and you will sell a lot of these gizmos, at more than $1.99 - 30% profit per gizmo. Perhaps a kickstarter to pay for production, a la the Glif? I'm in for one, possibly two, in advance.

I'd love it if my loose tea serving remaining would be estimated by my entering how much (in oz or grams) of tea I just added to the stash, and it estimating servings remaining based on stated servings/weight for that tea, then learn from my actual usage. (As a loose tea lover, I hate trying to guess how much I have of what, and store estimates aren't always accurate.)

BTW, I've been getting most of that tea from the guy who originally wrote "A Hacker's Guide to Tea:" http://www.chicagoteagarden.com/ and it's been good.

If you find some success with it, might I suggest skinning the app to serve other niches that share similar needs? I can think of a couple just off the top of my head. You might need to make a few tweaks, but the majority of the feature set could be reused, and with the feedback you get from this app you might find ways to refine the design even further.