Monday, August 31, 2009

- Favorite Things: Alfi

I had dinner last night with friends & discovered there were avid tea drinkers among them, so I made them a pot of tea and expounded on my love for my Alfi. That made me realize I should share my delight with other potentially like-minded souls!

First, let me position my tea drinking habit: I am a tea philistine. I like black tea, fairly dark, with a lot of milk and sugar. My needs and requirement are simple and unrefined. I just like the taste. I do not worry about whether the water is boiling, just under, or whatever temperature releases (or does not release) unattractive tannins. Whatever! For me the issue is simply: does the water turn dark enough and if I put a lot of milk in it, does it stay hot enough (but not too hot) to sip and enjoy immediately?

Like a baby gosling, I am imprinted on Twining's Earl Grey blend as my tea of choice, but I've been willing to branch out--Bigelow's English Teatime, Twining's Irish Breakfast & have even liked some loose teas: Red Blossom's Keemun and their Hunan Black are in my cupboard

So why do I think this Alfi is great? Well, in general, I make myself a pot in the morning & then drink it throughout the day. I used to have various tea cosies to fit various tea pots to try to keep it warm, etc. but by the third cup, I needed a microwave to warm it up. Yes, I have done it and lived to tell the tale. If you microwave with the milk in, you don't have to do it as long & usually it tastes OK to me.

But this Alfi has an internal glass thermos with a sealed lid that opens and pours with a finger press. It keeps that pot of tea (without a stained tea cosy) beautifully hot and drinkable for a very long time. Even if you're a more refined tea drinker (or even a coffee drinker who may not care for having the coffee pot sit on the heater for hours) I think you'll find the Alfi a highly useful and lovely addition to your life.

I still use my tea pots for loose tea, but the Alfi is my pot of choice for tea bags. I only use one tea bag per pot and get about three mugs of tea per pot. And it's very cute! Once I realized how wonderful the Alfi was, I ordered 10 more to be sure I had one in every house I spent time in (that is I gave them as Christmas presents to all close family and friends...).

My handy plug-in Capresso water boiler (pictured on the right) was used it in my office, but I've migrated one use at home as well, so I never have to worry about forgetting water on the stove. In my office, an Alfi, a water boiler, a small refrigerator for milk, a supply of sugar, spoon and mug and I never needed to go to the kitchen.

Here is one of my Alfis at home. It's sitting on a tile my husband bought me when he went to the Taj Mahal. Nothing's too good for my Alfi....

Alfi.jpg


I am not (alas) getting any kickbacks from Alfi on this. The information shared is solely to let you know about what I think is a great product that may meet your needs.

Drink up!

7 comments:

Anne McAllister said...

Do you take applications to get on your Christmas list, Isabel? ;)

Alfi sounds like my kind of guy, er, heat-sustaining-tea-gizmo. Thanks for posting about it.

Don't you love it when you find something cool that you want to share with everyone? I'm remembering the year everyone I know and love got a Magna-Brite to read maps with, whether they wanted it or not!

Cheers,
Anne

Isabel Swift said...

What is Magna-Brite? I must have one!

Anne McAllister said...

You can read all about Magnabrite (I guess they don't actually use the apostrophe. Hmmm.) here:
http://www.magnabrite.com/html/Home.htm

Love mine. And it really does draw in available light. Handy to have when using in a car, particularly.

Isabel Swift said...

Thank you! Nice. It looks very substantial & well crafted, but I actually want to find one with a light built in. Sometimes my "all available light" is not much light at all....

Donna Alward said...

Oooh the Alfi looks like a gadget I must have! And so pretty!

I am like you Isabel - I like black tea, fairly strong. No sugar, but I do like milk and I like it hot. The true test would be - will Alfi keep my tea HOT?

I too like Twinings Irish Breakfast. I don't like Earl Grey but I do like English Breakfast a lot as well.

Isabel Swift said...

Donna: we are aligned in most things, but when I did an A/B taste test (I have no taste memory, so can only figure out a preference if I taste things back to back) and determined that I liked Irish, but didn't really like English Breakfast. Go figure! And hot milk in tea....not for me. I like it with coffee, but heated milk tastes different to me & I prefer the regular milk taste.

Let me know if you try the Alfi. Everyone's preferences and usage patterns are so different, it's hard to know what will work.

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