It doesn't leak and takes the hot water very well. Great pitchers!

Quality - clear container feels solid, the top and handle have some flexibility, but not enough to be concerning. The interior strainer is a fine mesh which is sturdy.

Ease of Use - the strainer attaches to the removeable center of the lid. This makes it fairly unstable when filling with tea. A cup "holder" comes with the product, but it is of no real use as the cup does not firmly secure the strainer. Though the strainer is very fine, some small particles of loose leaf tea did manage to make it into the container. The strainer extends deep into the container allowing you to brew a small amount, however given the size of the overall container I'm not sure when you would actually want to do that. (Why not brew it in a cup or tumbler. A wider shorter strainer would also be better for cleaning (see below).

Cleaning - The strainer is long and narrow making it difficult to clean the bottom if you have large hands. the fine strainer catches on bottle brushes and the tapering makes it difficult to get into the corners. Rinsing it out is simple, but if more aggressive cleaning is needed, it will be difficult.

Overall- Works as intended and is of expected quality for the price.

This is the only way I make iced coffee at home. Very easy and economical.

Summer is here and I absolutely love iced tea done right. I live in Florida and it's hot. This is one of the most rewarding purchase I made in a long time. I had to go out of my way to praise this item. I've usually done the traditional way and it's good but always walk around saying it could be done better.

I think cause of the rubber seal, or the way it's shaped but this makes amazing iced tea. One of the secrets I use is a pinch, a tiny pinch of baking soda, and it clears the astringent taste from the acids. It also clears it up and gives it a great taste.

What I do is get the huge family size of tea bags. They each have 8g of tea... regular tea bags have 2..I cut the top of two tea bags. The filter screen is very well designed so there is not a drop of tea. Then I use one cup of sugar. Lemon juice to taste. Add the ice or cold brew. I used to cold brew but with this I flash freeze with ice cubes. One other trick I use is I make iced tea ice cubes. So when the ice melts, your tea is not watered down.

Of course change the amount of ingredients to taste but you can't go wrong with this. The part where you add the tea with the cover, it's air tight and seals the flavor in. I'm buying more than one of these for the summer. Hope you found this helpful.

I purchased both this and the cold brew coffee maker as a way to make my own beverages at home and save some money as well. They are both great products and you might be wondering if they are different at all.

First of all, this product works great. Like all Japanese products, it feels high-quality. It is essentially a pitcher with a two-piece detachable filter and an airtight lid with basically two "notch" positions - closed and "open enough to pour," though you'll probably just take the lid off when you serve. The pitcher is oblong, which doesn't come through in the pictures, so you can lay it on its side, though this is only recommended for the cold brew coffee maker and not this one, which is intended to be used upright only. The handle is also big and thick, with a rubberized grip.

The differences between this and the cold brew coffee maker are basically that the filter material used feels different. The cold brew coffee maker has a silky, denser mesh, while this one is a more standard, coarse, more open mesh. You can buy replacements for either one. You can either cold brew your tea like I do, which works the same way as the coffee maker, or you can use the "flash chill" method, which is basically a method where you pour hot water directly into the pitcher with the filter and tea inside, seal it, let it brew, take the filter out, screw the lid back on airtight after you drop ice cubes inside the pitcher, and shake it until it is chilled and ready to serve.

This method of pouring hot water directly into the maker is only for this, although everything is exactly the same as the cold brew coffee maker except for the filter so I'm pretty sure you can use that method with the coffee maker as well, although again the filter material itself is different. The iced tea maker also comes with a little cup that acts as a holder for the filter, which can stand up by itself when the lid is not screwed on. The coffee maker does not come with the cup. I also found that, in general, tea soaks up less water than coffee, so I had to take out the coffee maker halfway through the brew, maybe before I went to sleep, and fill it up with some more water, whereas I didn't have to do that with the iced tea maker. I did find that the handle part of the pitcher where the lid screws in, the actual colored part, often feels slightly loose and made me feel like I had to tighten it slightly. Please note that only the color of this piece and the lid are different. The two-piece filter only comes in black no matter what color you choose. One piece of the filter screws into the lid and the actual filter part screws into that first piece. It has a flat bottom, so can stand-up by itself, as previously mentioned.

Of course, this is a great airtight pitcher in and of itself, even when you're not using the filter and just need something big to mix/shake a drink in and pour it. Some of my favorites to make in this maker have been sencha green tea, which I find works better as an iced tea than regular green tea or matcha, various rooibos herbal teas, and a great maple black tea I found at Trader Joe's. I've needed 5-6 tea bags per pitcher, though the instruction manual says 8 bags. The iced tea maker seems to come in brighter colors than the coffee maker. Takeya also makes a spa water infuser version of this with a more open plastic filter, but you can easily use this or the coffee maker and just infusion spa water by dropping fruit directly into the water, without having to use the filters at all, which will give you a stronger flavor anyway.