Finding a tea infuser that gives loose tea leaves the space to unfurl without letting any tea leaves into your teacup can be tricky. Get tea infuser picks from a tea sommelier!
Tea Infusers
Tea infusers are superfine mesh baskets that hold loose tea leaves as they steep in a pot or a mug.
They’re great because you can just take the infuser out of the teapot when it’s finished steeping instead of pouring all the tea out of the pot immediately.
Tea Sommelier’s Tip: Using a tea infuser makes a huge impact on the flavor of your tea. It means you’re using loose tea leaves, which always makes a higher quality cup of tea than tea bags.
What to Look For When Buying a Tea Infuser
- Bigger the better
Look for an infuser that’s almost the size of your cup. You want as much room as possible to let the tea leaves unfurl all the way. - Extra fine mesh
Loose tea leaves getting in your cup isn’t the worst thing that can happen to your tea, but if it’s a pet peeve of yours, look for infusers with extra fine mesh that won’t let any tea leaves escape into your cup. - Comes with a lid
A lid keeps the tea covered so the water can stay hot for longer. - Easy to clean
This is always a dealbreaker for me. Since there are usually lots of small broken tea leaves caught in tea infusers after use, finding one that’s easy to clean is really important. Otherwise, you’ll never want to use it.
My Pick for Best Tea Infuser:
Photo Credit: amazon.com
Other Recommended Tea Infusers:
Photo Credit: amazon.com
Photo Credit: amazon.com
Photo Credit: amazon.com
Questions You May Have
After throwing out the tea leaves, rinse the infuser to get all the little bits out. Some infusers are dishwasher-friendly for a deeper clean, but otherwise washing it with mild dish soap should do the trick.
No. Usually you can tell roughly how fine the mesh is by the picture, but there are no measurements for it.
It depends. Most infusers are made of food-grade stainless steel, so if you’re using filtered water and cleaning it regularly, this shouldn’t happen. But if you’re using tap water with a high salt content, the tea infuser may begin to rust.
For the most part, yes. These infusers are made to fit into a variety of mugs and teacups, so if your mug is more or less normally sized, the infuser should fit fine. If you’re concerned, most of them include the dimensions in the description.
How do you feel about those single use loose tea bags that you can buy? They are big so the tea would be able to unfurl, but they’d fit in an antique pot.
What kind of infuser would you recommend for the vintage antique teapots that have these unique shaped neck and top/lid?
Thank you.
Ramon
Hi Ramon, instead of an infuser, it’ll be better to strain the tea when you’re ready to drink. Here are my strainer picks: https://www.ohhowcivilized.com/tea-strainers/