review - Cuisine Internationale Tea Ball Infuser

2" Tea Ball Infuser

$2.00(reg. price) @ mountain rose herbs

I love loose tea, but lets face it tea bags are more convienient. Thus the beauty of the infuser ball--its the best of both worlds.

I had not originally intended to use this for tea though, I bought it for cooking so I could easily remove herbs & spices from my dishes so the kids wouldn't know what I used.

What I like about this ball: it is stainless steel, it is 2" diameter (plenty of room for a cup of tea or pot of soup), the mesh is small so bits of leaves don't get in my cup, it is heavy enough to be a good 'dunker'--that is it want's to go under the water and not float on top.
What I thought needed some work: doesn't open wide enough for easy filling, flip latch is thin and can easily mis-shapen making it easy to open, hook at end of chain came crimped almost completely shut, chain could stand to be a little longer in my opinion (I like to loop the chain around the handle of the cup and hook it to itself)

Here it used and opened. This was enough for one mug of tea, notice that the leaves of the tisane (herbal tea) had plenty of room to swell - this is important to tea...the better the flow of water between the leaves the 'cleaner' the taste.
it cleaned up very nice although it was a bit of a bother to get the leaves off the screen (the tendency is to cling on).
I have used the infuser balls with the pierced metal before and was not pleased with the dust & impurities that would work their way thru I didn't notice this at all with the mesh. Although many of you may think it is due to a better quality tea--I truly believe the mesh is what made the difference...it is just finer.

Will I use it again---you betcha and for a variety of uses!!