Yama Sitka 24oz Borosilicate Glass Teapot with Built-in Mesh Filter, Dishwasher Safe, Ideal for Loose Leaf Tea, Dishwasher Safe

I enjoy my big-leafed oolong tea. This is by far the BEST tea pot I have ever used. I've tried using the metal ball-shaped mesh infusers and they just don't quite do the trick. This tea pot's stainless steel mesh top makes it very easy to pour and clean. I also like that the tea pot is made of glass so you can see the leaves open up in it. It's perfect for making two mugs of tea- one for me and one for my husband. This is my second Sitka tea pot and I got it for my dad as a present. He taught me to enjoy the art of tea since I was a teenager and he sure will appreciate how easy and beautiful this tea pot is.

I absolutely love this little teapot! It allows for beautiful loose tea to unfurl and steep in front of your eyes, allowing for reflection and quiet meditation. I use it several times every day and the strainer has never let me down, never even a speck of loose tea slips out. Easy to clean and so pretty either empty on my tea chest, or filled with blooming loose tea.

Since making the switch to loose leaf tea I have been looking for the perfect way to steep. For a long time I had settled on the tea balls with spring handles. They worked OK (as long as you got one that did not have warped lips that let leaves slip out), but I decided it was time to look at other options. So after extensive searching here on Amazon I found this little pot. With the good reviews it got I decided to try it out, and I am glad I did. The size is perfect for me because everything I use, from tea mug, to travel mug, to Stanley Thermos is all 16 oz.s, well within the pot's capacity. And even though it lacks any kind of markings to tell you how much water to use to get the desired capacity it took me only a couple cups to figure out by eye how much water to use (if in doubt under pour, keep a small quantity of hot water in reserve, and this way you can top off with hot water if your cup is under filled to your liking.)The shape of it gave me mixed feelings, meaning that the "bulged" shape of the bottom I knew might make cleaning out used leaves a bit of a problem (which it does, but I will get to my fix in a moment), but I had an "AH HA!" moment with the first use. I don't know if they designed it like this purposely, but the "bulge" actually has a huge affect when you pour. You see, if you pour slowly you get less fine grain dust emptied into your cup. And I mean a noticeable amount less! Being a New England Yankee (some folks could easily substitute the word "cheapskate" for the phrase :) ) I try not to waste whenever I can. So when I get to the bottom of the jar I of course have a lot of powder. The old tea balls would pretty much dump all this into the cup so that the last sip was borderline mud. Well, now I can dump a teaspoon full of tea that is like half leaf, half powdery chaff, and with a sloooow pour I get about as much sediment on the bottom as I would in a normal steep using the tea ball and a typical tea steep. I think that the bulge allows a lot of the sediment to stay down low, and then on top of that the leaves that float toward the strainer also help to add another level of straining. I don't know if I explained it well enough to describe it, but all I know is if you pour slow and careful you get a minimum of dust under the extreme "end of the batch" tea leaf steep, and under NORMAL situations you get virtually nothing, nada, no sediment at all! Of course the bulge also adds to the overall looks of it, so not only do you get function, but this will be a prized centerpiece to your tea setup! And the fact you can see and watch the leaves doing their thing is a pretty cool bonus!Now, I mentioned the bulge can make cleaning a bit tough....without a simple tool. At first it was a little bit of a pain to get used tea leaves out, but then I hit on an idea and bought a small nylon spatula (you could also use a silicone spoon.....I suggest nylon or silicone and not using a regular metal spoon just so you don't scratch the glass or, accidentally, crack the glass by hitting it too hard when scooping the tea leaves out.) Now, with a small spatula (or silicone spoon) I can scoop the majority out into the garbage and wash the last little bits out. Of course if you don't mind a full load of leaves going down the drain then just fill with water,swirl and dump into the sink. Also, the strainer part does remove from the top, as well as the screen and it's brace come apart. So the occasional thorough cleaning (in general all you need to do is run the top, fully assembled, under running water and all the little bits and bobs come off just fine) of this part is super simple and easy. Either way clean up turned out to be not as difficult as I thought it would.The glass is indeed thin. I have not had any issues yet, but I still take care not to be too rough with it just in case. Sure they could have made it thicker glass, but what would have that done to cost? Overall with care you should have no problems at all. And it seems to handle thermal shock pretty well. What I do is heat the water up in my metal teapot on the stove. When done I pour the water into this tea pot. Once the burner element is done glowing red I place this tea pot next to it, on the metal portion of the stove for a couple minutes, then finish the rest of my 5 minute steep on the element itself (meaning the burner element is no longer glowing red, but warm enough so you don't want to touch it.) I pour tea out into mug, begin the cleaning process by dumping tea out, and final clean with cold water. So the warm/hot pot when hit with cold water has not cracked. Thus it seems to take fairly normal hot/cold temp changes quickly and well. By no means would I suggest using this to boil water, steep the tea, and then douse it in ice cold water (would it hold up without cracking I don't know and would not presume to guess), but from a warm/hot to touch temp and straight-from-the-faucet cold water it has handled things well.So to sum it all up this tea pot is, for my needs, perfect. As noted above it does have it's quirks that need be noted (thinner glass requiring a bit of care to make sure you don't crack it, and the extra effort involved in cleaning over the tea ball or other steeping/straining device), but it is well worth it, in my opinion, for what you get. I have noticed a very slight change in taste over the tea ball (an ever so slight enhancement of flavor...a bit more full) that probably comes from the tea leaves having more room to "breath", so to speak. If you get one of these pots you will not be disappointed!

After a couple years of searching this is our favorite pot. A gaiwan is great but too small for many uses. The plastic sleepers with the valve on the bottom are hard to clean and impart flavors from past brews. Eventually they start looking gunned up.This is easy to clean, simple in design, and looks fine on the table. I love the fact that the curved bowl means that the leaves end up being held by the side of the pot between steeps so the leaves drain and don't overbrew. (With green tea this helps prevent bitterness). I also love the size - perfect for two cups or to fill my thermal mug.The only thing to make it better would be marks on the side to indicate volume, but after a few days we were able to judge amounts based on where it hit the curve.

I love loose-leaf teas but finding a teapot for them is a real pain. I prefer to keep my leaves constantly steeping, so the pots that hold the leaves at the very top annoy me. 2nd best option are the ones that have a central cavity extending down into the pot, but then the leaves get all lumped together in there for less than complete steep-age. When I saw this design I was ecstatic - the leaves are allowed to flow freely in the pot but the strainer doesn't let any of them pour into your cup. Works with teabags as well. Also easy to clean and no stains on mine.Only wish it could be a little bigger, but I just re-fill the pot often. Would recommend this pot to anyone who likes to get fully steeped tea free of leafy bits!

The size is perfect for two cups of tea. I read from some reviews that the door is tightly closed and is not easy to reopen. That's correct but I don't close the door when puting on the stove for boiling water. I just put the door on the kettle but not tightly closed. If you do so, it will not open easily when the water is boiling and ready to put your tea bag or loose tea in it. So this is what I do: Pour the amount of water you want, place on the stove, put the door just top of the kettle, not closed. After water comes to boil, turn off the heat, put tea bag or loose tea in it, close the door tightly. Cover the kettle with a dish cloth and let stand for 3 to 5 minutes. Your tea is ready. If you close the door tightly while heating on the stove, the metal door get expanded because of heat and gets very tight and hard to open to add the tea.High quality, free from chemicals at boiling temperature. Although on the package it says that it doesn't break in high temperature but I still take the safe side and heat it on medium heat. We just love it. Highly recommended!.