The best kitchen gadget ever! If you love loose leaf tea, this is for you! It's quick and easy to set up, the water boils in record time and you can set the brewing time to your liking. I also like watching the basket go up and down inside the pot! It's like magic! LOL! The only "con" is that it doesn't keep the tea as warm as I would like with the warming feature, but all things considered, the pros outweigh the one con. It's also a beautiful Appliance in our beverage center. I don't know how we lived without this one! It is pricey, but sometimes you just gotta spoil yourself! I found this by accident on Amazon, that was a lucky day!

Purchased this as a gift. She has been using it everyday and likes the times start to have tea brewed when she is ready for it in the morning.
Worth the expense if you are brewing loose teas on a daily basis. Simple to set up and easy to clean.

Brewing good tea is finicky. You need just the right temperature for steeping it; the tea leaves need to have room to breathe; and you must absolutely, positively take them out at the right time. Other than that, it's easy.

This appliance tries to take the art out of tea making. I mean that in a good way. You tell it "tea, black, medium", pour in the water and put in the tea leaves, and it does the rest. (If you're fancy, you can say "180 degrees, 3:30 minutes" instead.) It heats the water, drops the tea basket into it, leaves it there for the allotted time, pulls it out again, and beeps. You pour the tea. It can keep what's left warm for you.

It works surprisingly well, actually. Even delicate green teas come out flavorful and fresh. Black teas are not over-steeped (unless you ask for that, of course). You can make a single mug (aka two tea cups) just fine - even though only the bottom of the basket is in the water, infusion still works well. Or you can make a dozen cups; there's a mode that keeps moving the basket up and down in the water to ensure maximum contact.

To me, the best feature of this device is also, perhaps, controversial. It automates the tea making process; you can set it up, walk away, and when it beeps, your tea is ready to enjoy. It takes the ceremony out of the tea-making. Without the lifting-the-basket-when-it-is-time feature, you pretty much have to stand there and watch the tea brew. A minute of contemplation and reflection, all wiped out by technology. I guess that's progress...

Of course nothing is perfect. The carafe itself cleans up easily, but the spent tea leaves will cling tenaciously to the inside of the metal basket, requiring vigorous scrubbing with a suitable kitchen brush to get them out. That's mildly annoying. Perhaps Breville should design a custom-shaped brush to go with this basket. (Perhaps someone else should?) Of course, you can let the tea dry in its basket and then it'll drop right out, but that would take hours.

Five stars for the quality of the tea, the design, and the general convenience. Minus one star for the annoyance of cleaning up the tea basket afterwards. A very good device. Recommended even for picky tea drinkers.

Cheers
-- perry

It's okay. Very expensive. Doesn't keep tea very warm

I gave up coffee a few years ago and had been looking for a tea maker that could brew the tea in the morning before I get up for work.
I love this tea maker because i can set it the night before and it makes the the tea at 530am before I get up for work. the engineering that went into making this tea kettle is really impressive.