Brewing: infuser vs. pot

[Guest]

Hello,

I own a traditional tea room in England.

We use loose leaf teas and tea strainers. We wash out the teapots after every use and use a sterilising fluid on them once per week to ensure they are spotlessly clean inside as well as outside. We do this to create the right image to our customers although ideally we would use one pot for each tea ie several pots for lapsang suchong and several for gunpowder etc and we shouldn't really sterilise the inside, this would allow the inside of the teapot to build up a layer of natural tanning and would allow for a better quality cup of tea the more the teapot is used.

[Dronak]

Seeing how much the loose tea leaves expand in the ingenuiTEA pot when I brew tea, I'm kind of reluctant to use any sort of infuser. It seems like it would be hard to find something convenient that would allow full expansion of the leaves. A strainer might be a better option than an infuser, but I think I'm going to stick with the ingenuiTEA pot for loose tea whenever possible.

[klemptor]

A good middle ground is an infuser that has a ton of space, like the PersonaliTEA or RoT's People's Pot.

I used to use tea balls but no more - I actually feel bad putting leaves in them now...my mind likens it to keeping an eel in a goldfish bowl.

I also mostly use the Agatha's Bester tea filter system because the sleeves are disposable and the handle can just go in the dishwasher.