I enjoyed using this for six months or so....a few times a week with many kinds of tea. It did a fine job filtering out all the particles.

If you have troubles with putting too much liquid in and overflowing your cups, try putting the hot water into your cup to start with then pouring into the infuser.

I had some troubles with the little plate that comes with it, upon which you rest the infuser while waiting for it to brew, if you did not hit it right, the liquid will come out the bottom of the infuser. I replaced with tea saucer and had no more troubles that way.

As for cleaning, a left twist on the filter will loosen it to clean the top of the infuser...this was not difficult to find. You can yank at it a bit and take out the dispenser part at the bottom for cleaning, which i successfully did twice, but it is a wee bit hard to figure out how to put back together. I put all the parts into the dishwasher, had no troubles. The third time I yanked out the bottom part to wash it, I lost one part so I am unable to put it back together. It does come completely apart for cleaning and fairly simply....I suggest that if you do this, you try not to lose parts of it :).

I wanted to provide a recent review for anyone considering buying this product. When I first bought this product at Teavana I was skeptical. I wasn't sure if it would make a difference to my tea compared to a normal mesh or stainless steal strainer. To my surprise, I was able to notice a difference! I've had my current Perfectea Maker for about 3 months. Originally I bought one for work, but just purchased one for home.

I have to say that there was some trial and error in the cleaning process. All parts ARE removable. However, you have to be very careful putting it back together the first couple of times before you get the hang of it, otherwise you will have a leaky mess the next use. First, there is a silicone plug that goes around the bottom hole. If you do not put the larger side up, fluid will leak out. There was also an issue with the main bottom piece that acts as a stopper. There are small notches on the colored plastic that must be lined up with slots on the clear container. It's difficult to describe, but if you own one you will see what I mean. If the notches are not in properly the stopper piece will be stuck in place and not move freely.

I truly hope that anyone who loves loose leaf tea will consider purchasing this item.

Just got this tea maker recently and I'm absolutely loving it. I can safely say that I will not be making tea any other way as long as this is available.

The unit seems sturdy enough, though it's not spectacular and I can foresee it breaking if it takes enough trauma. The design IS spectacular however and it not only makes a perfect cup of tea, but it's actually pretty fun to use!

Once you start steeping the tea, you can watch the leaves float around in the water which I particularly enjoy because you can see the tea being made, and if you like a certain strength on your tea, you can check the color to make sure it's to your liking.

After the tea has been steeped you just place the unit on top of whatever mug you're using and it drops it right in. The strainer works very well and I've only ever gotten a tiny speck of a tea leaf in my tea once.

I will also say as a side note, a clear mug would make this much easier to use, since the tea leaves sort of block your view into the mug which means it's tough to see how much liquid you're pouring into the mug. However, it's easy to avoid this problem by just pre-measuring the amount of water you need so you don't have to worry about it.

Clean up is very easy as well as the strainer pops out decently easily and it's just a matter of a quick rinse out, and then soapy water when you really need to clean it.

Overall, I could not give higher recommendations to this unit. Perfect way to make a great cup of tea!

I bought one of these for myself after seeing a friend use hers, and it's my favorite tea type thing ever. I've used a lot of different types of tea balls, tea bags for loose tea, screens that go in the mug, and this just out performs all of them. When my brother-in-law came to visit, he was fascinated with it, so I bought him one for Christmas, and he loves it too! This works wonderfully with loose tea, I've never had a problem with anything getting through the screen, and it's very easy to clean. It holds a lot of water so be careful when you set it on your mug. It can be easy to overflow your mug. We have pretty big mugs (16 oz) and filling it all the way to the top of the handle is just right.

Obviously be careful when you snap the screen back in the bottom (and it will feel like you're going to break something because it's a nice tight fit), but in the 4 or 5 years I've had mine it's still intact and no damage at all.

Much as I like tea (and grew up on it), I really can't stand teapots. The lid slides around, clinks, falls off; they're not so easy to wash; and I invariably end up with either too weak a brew, or too strong a brew.

Teabags? Not my thing - not even the ones you stuff yourself (because I usually forget to hold the top whilst adding the water, and lose the whole into the cup. And then a few leaves make a brave escape attempt).

This thing, however, is perfect. It's 16oz, so two cups, or a normal mug. I can see whether the infusion has got to the right point because of the clear walls, and it sits perfectly on top of my mug while releasing. (I did take the advice of one of the previous reviews and buy glass mugs. But a quick test with cold water would tell you how far you can fill this thing to handle your cups/mugs.)

A two-cup capacity means two teaspoons (or one dessert spoon - not tablespoon) of tea leaves. And no need to add "one for the pot".

Before this device came along I was indifferent to rooibos "tea". Now it's become a staple (plus a bit of honey for decadence).

Time will tell if it can stand up to a year or more of constant use. But at this price it's almost worth buying one a year.

Update (Feb 2013)
The lid keeps coming off, so I docked a star. Turn it upside down after cleaning - lid falls off. Press the little tab to open the lid - lid flies off. It's being seated firmly each time, too, so it seems the little tabs may have worn down just enough to reduce the distance they protrude into the divots for them. Otherwise the tea maker still performs admirably.