The Té Machine is a capsule based tea brewing system developed by the industrial and scientific group at Cambridge Consultants, a company that was also involved in the invention of round tea bags.
Defining the characteristics of the perfect cup of tea is nearly impossible, as each person judges the quality by subjective criteria. Cambridge Consultants, however, claims to have developed the brewing system that makes the perfect cup. It remains to be seen if their statement is true or not.
Seeing how the coffee appliances have evolved in the past decade, the company felt the need to revolutionize the way tea is brewed, too. The ones involved in the development of the Té machine considered that a capsule system, similar to the ones used in modern one-cup coffee machines, would make perfect sense. However, the similarities stop here, the system used for brewing the tea being very different from the single-pass flow method.
Obviously, the brewing time depends on the type of tea that is used. The brewing machine is able to half the regular time needed for making a cup, but the 2 minutes reference is not valid for all types of tea. The appliance is able to remove the bitter notes of the tea, without reducing its strength.
Edward Brunner, the leader of the industrial and scientific department of Cambridge Consultants, stated: “Whilst coffee systems have seen a significant amount of innovation over the last decade nothing has changed in tea brewing, leaving the tea drinker almost forgotten about. We saw a real opportunity to use our experience in the beverage industry to level the playing field and make a step change in this category.
Thanks to our expertise in fluidic systems and functional packaging, and our dedicated dispense lab facilities, we have been able to finely tune the process needed to offer the most sophisticated brewing platform to bring customized, high-quality tea dispensing into the home.
Contrary to other tea machines on the market, this is based on a genuine tea-brewing process – rather than simply a ‘single-pass flow’ with fresh water.The technology process has been developed with black teas but has the potential to be used across a range of herbal and fruit teas, and other hot drinks.”
It is rather peculiar to see the Brits of all people come up with an automated tea brewing machine. I would have thought that they are more conservative and that they enjoy brewing their tea in the classic manner. Even though I still am a bit skeptical about this product, I will have to wait and see how the wide public reacts once the Té machine enters mass production.
The above video explains better how this system works. However, the comments on Daily Mail are far from favorable, so it seems that I’m not the only one who does not see this innovation with good eyes. Cambridge Consultants may think that the Té machine represents the demise of tea bags, but people seem to think otherwise.
The exact price of this appliance is currently unknown, but given the components it’s made from, chance are it won’t cost more than $240. On the other hand, the price of the tea capsules will depend only on the type of leaves that are used.
If you liked this post, please check these 11 geeky tea infusers and these cute tea bag hangers.
