TeaChat

I was thinking of asking my family for a tea scale for Christmas, and was wondering what kinds you guys might suggest. Upton has one, but even at their lower price, it is still upper-average price for a scale like that. I was looking at this scale (http://www.amazon.com/My-Weigh-Digital- ... _sbs_hpc_1) but one reviews said it is almost too touchy to be reliable and another said it fluctuates a lot, and a third said they overloaded it somehow. The rest say it is a good scale and it is the one I was thinking of asking for, but is there another one any of you might suggest as being better? Have any of you used this one?

http://www.amazon.com/My-Weigh-440-Z-Di ... 214&sr=8-2

I have this little scale. It has the advantage of a small cover that doubles as a tray. I've had no problems with it, and I can't see overloading it, cause at a limit of 440 gm, there is no tea I would weight that weights more than that (just under a pound). You could always split a huge amount of tea into smaller portions to weigh if needed. A pu'erh bing is 357, and vendors sell loose tea in smaller increments like 100 g at a time, so it is fine for checking weights of things I've bought. You can switch between Oz, Gram and pennyweight (for gold).

The little tray can easily hold 5 grams or so of tea to make it very convineient to weight out a portion. You can tare the cover so as to read only the tea weight quickly.

i would say they are all pretty similar..I have one like this
http://www.amazon.com/American-Weigh-Si ... _sbs_hpc_5

its a bit more down to the .01 precision,,but its smaller so you cant put as much on it..but for me I am usually just weighing out sessions of sencha or Pu or whatever so it works great for my needs. Just depends on how you will use them I guess

Heh, I bought the Upton one before I knew any better about prices, availability, etc. I had no idea there were so many of them out there and so cheap. But I had been wanting one and there it was, brand new item. I have never even once used the so called tea functions that are included.

Bottom line, it has served me extremely well. Never has needed recallibrating ... not even a battery. I guess I have had it 6+ years. Simple calculation between daily use and heavy duty use for tastings such as OTTI , it has been used over 7000 times.

It is also a little bigger than most of the pocket types ...

Rarely a tiny leaf particle might cause the weight to "dance" if it manages to get under the platform thingy (technically speaking ), but this is easily remedied.

iannon wrote:i would say they are all pretty similar..I have one like this
http://www.amazon.com/American-Weigh-Si ... _sbs_hpc_5

its a bit more down to the .01 precision,,but its smaller so you cant put as much on it..but for me I am usually just weighing out sessions of sencha or Pu or whatever so it works great for my needs. Just depends on how you will use them I guess

+1
Have the same one and like it very much. I have used it for about two years with no issues. In hindsight, I wish I had bought the high-cap version (to 250g's ?) for weighing larger portions.

I use the following one, to which I have attached a small tray and very happy with it:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brand-New-100g- ... 256a462076

This other one comes with a tray:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Digital-Scale-5 ... 256711ecb8

Sweet.

I uses scales many times a day for coffee and tea. I've gone through a number of different brands, including several Chinese cheapies.

My favourite lower capacity scale is the My Weigh Triton T2 550 x 0.1g model. It's $15 on Amazon here. It has a very convenient removable lid, ribbed body, huge display, takes AAAs (no silly coin cells), and most importantly uses a load cell that updates significantly faster than most other pocket scales. Make sure you get the 550g capacity model.

For heavier stuff I use an American Weigh SC-2KG, a 2000 x 0.1g scale. I do not like it as much as the Triton, but the extra capacity and larger platform are required for brewing coffee in heavy mugs. It's a great value if you need it.

I have this one along with a 100g calibration weight and have nothing but good things to say about it.

Love mine from amazon. Great value. Has a lid that I flip upside down to use to place the tea on to weigh. Must have tea tool in my opinion.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0026K ... 00_details

I don't think 0.01g precision is useful for any aspect of tea making.

Bob_McBob wrote:I don't think 0.01g precision is useful for any aspect of tea making.

Bob, but I love weighing my fukamushi down to the individual broken piece.

Bob_McBob wrote:I don't think 0.01g precision is useful for any aspect of tea making.

And I also doubt that a $15 scale is going to be very accurate at that level of precision.

AdamMY wrote:

Bob_McBob wrote:I don't think 0.01g precision is useful for any aspect of tea making.

Bob, but I love weighing my fukamushi down to the individual broken piece.

+1

Mine is to .05 ... and I nail it each time ... I just cannot stop or help myself. T-OCD kicks in and if it is not exact, I get all ... anxious.

Poohblah wrote:

Bob_McBob wrote:I don't think 0.01g precision is useful for any aspect of tea making.

And I also doubt that a $15 scale is going to be very accurate at that level of precision.

Mine was ... I forget, but more. As I mentioned above, it is Uptons (I bought it the day they introduced them)

It sems extremely accurate and consistent. I can weigh something 10 times and it comes out exactly the same each and every time. Unlike a bathroom scale, which drives me nutz, it can fluctuate +/- 5 or so pounds each time I step on.

Chip wrote:

AdamMY wrote:

Bob_McBob wrote:I don't think 0.01g precision is useful for any aspect of tea making.

Bob, but I love weighing my fukamushi down to the individual broken piece.

+1

Mine is to .05 ... and I nail it each time ... I just cannot stop or help myself. T-OCD kicks in and if it is not exact, I get all ... anxious.

I'm getting a vision of Chip donning microscope glasses and fishing individual leaves and pieces off of the scale's tray using a pair of hemostats, all while wearing a contorted facial expression of extreme concentration...