Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanielStraight | Hacker News Reader

Does it dispense directly into the cup or into a bag?

I know some people leave their tea in their cup the whole time they're drinking, but I find it's really best to control steeping time and limit it to a few minutes.

View on HN

Thanks Daniel. teaBOT makes your perfect blend and mixes the hot water and leaves in the cup. The filter lid keeps the leaves out of your mouth, but you're right it doesn't stop steeping. It's fine in most cases but we are working on a solution for the next generation :)

As somewhat of a tea addict (I just bought a kg of loose leaf tea last week) I think this sounds like a great product. I actually watched the video not expecting much, and I was pleasantly surprised by it's features and interface. If you ever make a home version, and I stop being a poor student, I would definitely be interested in something like that.

Personally, My one complaint would be about the selection, I'd like to see more types of tea/specific regions (Darjeeling, Assam, etc.) relative to the amount of 'additives'. But that's probably just me being a tea snob :). Is the selection up to the owner of the premise, or do you decide the stock for them?

That's great feedback. Thank you. I hope you can come try it for yourself but I'm glad you liked the video. We're open to suggestions regarding selection. We've already replaced several less popular ingredients and will continue to listen to our customers. No plans for a home unit yet, but we let you order your favourite blends online to enjoy at home. Excellent point about allowing the venue to select ingredients. We have allowed them to create a house blend, but no venue has requested ingredients yet.

You go to the expense of buying loose leaf tea and then leave the leaves in to steep for >5min which basically makes teabags taste better because you can remove them and you can get quality tea in teabags nowadays (not just fannings and dust). I know different types of tea need different length of steeping but no black tea can survive longer than 5 mins. The reason you can still drink tea that was steeped longer when you make it in a cup is because the temperature in an open mug goes down very quickly. In your setup with a closed mug it's going to be even worse.

You must've seen this coming.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com