8.01.2011

VarieTEA kettle - Review





The VarieTEA tea kettle sold by Adagio.com allows water to be boiled as hot as the type of tea one is making. I ordered mine back in late spring, taking advantage of a special dollar off amount, and using up some of my gift certificate points for purchases and selling signature blends.
It is available for sale on Adagio.com, along with a 12-month warranty plan:
http://www.adagio.com/teaware/varieTEA_kettle.html?SID=0fc02aa8965eb87ef14312bd069a40e1

I received mine a few days ago and am in heaven! I love the variety (er, sorry, varieTEA) of teas I can make with this. I've used it on all settings, but since I prefer green tea - and typically that's all I drink in the summertime - that's the kind I've brewed most lately. I use the delicate setting for a lot of the caffeine-free teas, such as Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime line. I'm surprised at how much crisper a lot of the green teas are - I can actually taste the gunpowder green in the Mint Green Tea from Culinary Teas. Also, my Awakening blend from Adagio tastes much better; I can identify the light vanilla taste with mint.

There are some quirks; though nothing is as bad as others have reported (see the reviews from Adagio). I have to watch when I set the kettle back on the stand because the black tea "212" button will light up. I can just select another tea type or turn it off. Also, the "keep it warm" feature doesn't work too well... or at all. But since I would prefer reheating the water anyway, I don't mind. (Sometimes I'm not sure which tea I want to have next, so I like the option of changing my mind.)

The price is another downside. Since I got this on a sale and using gift certificates, I didn't worry about the price so much at the time. But I thought about getting this as a gift and I'm not sold on the price tag, with as many quirks as has been reported.

Readers, if any of you have purchased this kettle, what do you think? Is it better or worse than other varieties?

Stay tuned - I'll do a review after I've had this for a month to see it is still up to par.


3 comments:

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  2. It's been two months. Please give an update. I'm considering buying this for use at work. It has all the features I'd like, but reviews from other sites are scaring me off. After having used your Varietea Kettle for a couple of months now, how do you like it?

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  3. I just received my kettle yesterday & not sure about it. I'll try it for white or green tea this evening (must have black tea in the AM). I'm a bit leary with this purchase but was really hoping the bugs would be worked out by now.

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