Review: Kamjove Tea Maker

This little device, with perhaps a little more refinement to its design, could be to Chinese tea what the cafetiere has been for coffee.

I picked up this one as a contingency – there is a planned move to another office (well, to be honest, it’s an ex-storage room that’s being converted), which will be possibly mean much smaller desks. If I have to retire my tray and other tea ware back to home use, then this might still allow me to continue making the teas that I want.

There is quite a range of these with different capacities and variations in shape and lid design. However, they all share the same basic mechanism. As a trial, I picked up the 200ml model for about £7. It comes with a little plastic tea scoop in a sturdy box that I think has had some additional packing added inside (these Chinese eBayers don’t hold back on packaging – whatever you are buying, no matter how delicate, it is going to reach you in in excellent condition).

The product consists of a glass jar with a plastic chamber that sits in the top half of it. The chamber has a filter at the bottom and below that, a covered aperture. You put the leaves into the chamber, then add your water and cover with the lid. Once the tea is ready, just press a little button on the lid to open the aperture, allowing the tea to drain into the jar below while the leaves remain in place for you to add more water for another brew.

This is an elegant solution but implemented with a couple of flaws and something that you need to be aware of: this is sold as a 200ml device and the glass jug is indeed able to hold that. However, about half it’s capacity is taken up by the upper chamber and that has a small than 100ml capacity. Essentially, this will make you enough for two regular Chinese tea cups or one larger one. If you want to brew a western cup of tea, then look to the larger sizes and keep in mind that whatever the size quoted, you’ll be making a little less than half that in tea.

The first flaw – at least it is as I see it – is that the chamber and lid are made from a cheap and I suspect rather brittle plastic that could be very easy to break. The second flaw, and one in the design itself rather than the materials, is that the chamber components don’t seem to come apart for cleaning – which means that if any leaves get below the filter (and they can certainly do that at the sides), then you can’t remove the filter to get them out. It might be a good idea to be careful not to use any small/broken leaf tea or the last of the tea at the bottom of the caddy with lots of tiny bits in it.

So, how does it fare in use?

The chamber sits very comfortably in the jar which is well made and has a handle securely fixed by a metal cuff. Into this I added a scoop of a very nice milk oolong (I’ll probably post that review next Saturday).

Now, I filled this just about to the brim and you’ll see that the capacity of the chamber is somewhat less than half of the 200mil capacity of the jar.

There was a little drip here and there into the jar, but very little and certainly nothing to be a problem – just enough to steam it up though.

The button pushes in with very little pressure but doesn’t feel delicate and in seconds the tea is in the jar, leaving the tea leaves behind for your next brew.

You should note that on this model, the lid only sits on top of the chamber, so you’ll want to hold it in place with a finger while pouring.

What you get is enough tea to fill two of my little tea cups – which is about what I get from my little gaiwans and that suits me just fine. For a larger tea cup, you would probably be best to get a 500ml model – perhaps £5 more, which is still a reasonable price I feel.

Finally, cleaning. I’ve mentioned that there is a little clearance between the side of the chamber and the filter. Rinsing proved sufficient to do the job of getting any little particles under there but I have to say that I would prefer that I could just take the filter out and get in there to do a manual job. Of course, it may be that I’m missing something really obvious – if you know of a way to dismantle it with damaging the thing, please, please, let me know!

My concerns may yet prove unwarranted in practice and I shall certainly write more about this family of devices in the future. As it is, at £7 together with a little cup and small flask, means that you can be brewing your first cup after less than £20 expense. In spite of this reservation, I have to say that I really like these little devices and if space is an issue for you, then you can’t go far wrong for this sort of money – just make sure that you get one large enough for your needs, I would guess that the volume of tea made is going to be about 40% of the quoted capacity. I hope that I’m not going to need to use this but after a try out, I’m confident that if it come to it I think this will do the job.

These are available from numerous traders on eBay - I made this purchase from Dragon Tea House (I believe in Shanghai). They post goods promptly and anything I've ordered has arrived in two weeks on the dot!

Update: You can read a short follow-up on keeping this stain free here!