Mr. Coffee TM75RS-RB-1 3-Quart Tea and Iced Coffee Maker, Red

This tea maker works GREAT. A lot of the reviews helped me determine the best way to make tea the way we like it. Here's what I found out...We don't like our tea watered down, so I didn't use the iced tea directions that came with it as it’s designed to make just over a quart of tea with the rest ice. We wanted to have a full pitcher of tea, let it cool, put in the fridge, then add ice later.Valuable lesson that I learned... Do NOT fill the water in the pitcher beyond the "Water 3 qt line” (which is just over a quart of actual water). It doesn't seem like you're putting much water into the machine, but if you try to put a lot more water into it, it'll come right out the spout in the front and the little hole that's in the back (I made a big water mess the first time trying to put more water in). The machine will actually fit about 1.5 quarts of water, but I found that when I put that much in, it didn’t brew the rest of the water and had some tea backed up into the tea bag basket.Here are the steps that I used to make a full pitcher of strong, sweetened tea (my family likes Celestial Raspberry Zinger Herbal Tea):1. Fill the provided pitcher with water to the “Water 3 qt” line (filtered, if you have it); again, it’s just over 1 qt of actual water. Remove the tea basket holder and pour the water into the machine. Put the tea basket holder back in.2. If you plan on making a full pitcher of tea, put 12 tea bags into the basket, slide the water spout back over the top of the basket, close lid, and set the switch on the front to "strong" (modify to fit your needs).3. Put the pitcher securely in front of the machine with spout under the opening (see photo). Push button on the side to turn it on and brewing will begin (takes about 10 minutes to brew - power switch light on the side turns off when it’s done). It'll fill the pitcher with about 1 quart of actual tea. We wanted a full pitcher of tea with NO ice, so...4. Carefully open the water reservoir again (the steam is HOT) and remove the basket but KEEP the same tea bags in the basket. Using a separate pitcher, fill machine with just over 1 quart of water. Turn the machine on again to brew adding to the current tea. This fills the provided pitcher to about the 2 qt line.5. Repeat step 4 once more to get 3 full quarts of tea!6. OPTIONAL: Pour the 12 tea bags into the pitcher to let it steep about another 15-20 minutes (to get the most out of the tea bags). If you like it sweetened, ADD 3 TABLESPOONS OF STEVIA IN THE RAW (calorie-free, natural sweetener) or whatever your preference. Let cool for a bit then put into the fridge. Serve over ice. It turns out PERFECT.The other awesome perk of this tea maker is the design of the pitcher. It fits perfectly on the door of our fridge and even on a short shelf (see photo). Just be careful of tea spilling out of the spout as one side of the lid is an open spout for brewing, and the other side is a straining spout, so there's no "closed" option like with a circular pitcher. Just something to be aware of.I highly recommend!

This is pretty sweet. I needed a change from making tea on the range or woodstove and while adding another specialty appliance is mind numbing, the simplistic way to brew makes it worth it to me. I always want strength in the brew and steeping for long periods of time often busts tea bags. Setting this for strong with 12 tea bags makes for a perfect brew for my personal taste. It brews at around 200 degrees and helps make simple work steeping the tea for the short period of time it takes at about 12 minutes brew time. I like to use a blend of green tea and orange pekoe and add some turmeric, black pepper and local honey for a nice anti inflammatory blend and it tastes perfect. This machine makes it simple however storing it’s large footprint not so much but I feel it’s worth it. One flaw (that I can look beyond) is that it does not have a closure for the spout on the pitcher. It would have been nice to have a closure so it can be placed in the fridge without drawing in smells and flavors hurling around in there.

Like many other reviewers, we had a previous generation iced tea brewer from this manufacturer. The reason we replaced our older model was that the pitcher on the old model was made from a hard plastic (acrylic maybe) and over time it would develop lots of small cracks where the hot liquid would poor into the pitcher. Eventually it would start to leak. We replaced it once, but the replacement cost was about 1/2 of the total cost of the unit. So when our last replacement pitcher started to leak, we looked for a replacement unit with a better pitcher.This unit has worked fine for us for over a year and we brew tea about every 3-5 days. Let me address some common complaints I have seen in the other reviews.* If you aggressively dump water into the unit rather than carefully pour, then the water does splash up inside the unit and it will find the seam where the blue clear section meets the top section (and air inlet hole) and some water will get out. If you fill with the amount of water you are supposed to, the water level never gets near that seam.* Our unit has never leaked while brewing. If you move it, expect the water inside to slosh around and find that seam or air inlet hole and get out. I'm not sure why people are moving it while it is brewing. I wouldn't move a coffee maker that is running and not expect some spillage.* When the brew cycle is complete, when you lift the top lid condensation will collect and then run down the inside of the lid. There is a little hole that should catch it, but if you get a lot of condensation dripping all at once then expect some to get away and run down the back of the unit.* The pitcher for this model is 10x better than the hard acrylic one we has with the previous model. It is dishwasher save and isn't showing any signs of fatigue or cracking that the old one did. The handle is a bit large, but it does need to support 3 quarts of liquid, so I wouldn't want it any smaller. I frequently use two hands anyway.In short, our unit does not actively leak water or tea, but we do frequently have some water (not tea, but water) to wipe up after we use it. Some is spilled by us when we fill it, some is from condensation on the pitcher, etc. I like to point out that this is a $20 item and it is built as such. It isn't a $100 brewer. If you fill it carefully and let it sit and do it's job, it works fine.