Mr. Coffee TM3-2 3-Quart Ice Tea Maker
by Mr. Coffee
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List Price: Our Price: $17.73 You Save: $2.26 (11%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Category: Kitchen See more product details |
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Mr. Coffee TM3-2 3-Quart Ice Tea Maker
Customer Review: great iced tea maker
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the second one of these I have bought. (The first lasted nearly 10 years and was used 4-6 time a week.) I especially like that I can use either bagged or loose tea to brew and that I can use the pitchers from my old one on this model. Especially important when you have company and want several pitchers at the ready.Customer Review: Works great
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had this icedtea maker for three years and it still works great. It is quick and easy to use. When I have a summer barbecue, I can make several pitchersfull without taking much time away from all of the other busy things that have to be done when I am feeding a lot of people. I'm going to buy another one for iced coffee. Customer Review: Doesn't compare to Hamilton Beach
Summary: 3 Stars
First, physical weaknesses: The pitchers crack and warp slowly but steadily, so won't last forever. You can replace them for about ten bucks, but with shipping that's half the cost of an entirely new unit. And you can't put them in the dishwasher, so you'll probably want at least several up front anyway, so that you can clean them.
Second, cleaning problems. Unlke the Hamilton Beach tea makers, the bags here go in the brewing housing, which has to be removed and cleaned separately from the pitcher. And if you forget to do that, you'll have yucky (even moldy) tea bags the next time you go to make tea, even if that's within two days.
Hamilton Beach instead keeps the bags' brewing area inside the pitcher itself, which you can refridgerate and prevent yuck and mold from occuring. Plus, the Mr Coffee station drips TEA on the counter as soon as you remove the pitcher, whereas the Hamilton Beach only drips WATER since the tea process is all contained in the pitcher itself.
Further, the Mr Coffee series requires that the pitcher get very close to the brew housing station, with the tea just BARELY getting into the spout, or else you'll get tea dripped on the counter WHILE brewing. That messiness increases as the pitcher begins to warp and crack. Hamilton Beach bests that both by including a pull-out tray that HOLDS the pitcher in the correct position, and by having the tea drip directly to the center of the pitcher rather than milimeters from the edge of the spout.
Above all, the Hamilton Beach series simply makes better tea. It includes a dial that allows you to make weak, medium, or strong tea, and that's all automated. The Mr Coffee series has no such setting, but requires you to "close" the brewing area for a period and then turn a dial to "open" before it starts putting tea in the pitcher. That manual step both slows down the tea production, and risks making quite the mess if you forget to go back and open the dial.
Finally, the Mr Coffee pitcher is a large and obtrusive ROUND cylinder that takes up lots of space in the fridge, even when there's only a glass or so left in the pitcher. The Hamilton Beach pitchers are instead elongated OVAL shapes, that fit in more places in the fridge, even in the fridge door, and are *shorter* so that you can put them on a shelf with a lower overhead.
Mr. Coffee: bigger mess, more manual, more cleaning, more risk, lower longevity, and lamer tea.
Hamilton Beach: no mess, no manual revisit, easy to clean, no risk, lasts longer, better tea, and more options when you make it.
No contest!
Customer Review: LOVE this product!
Summary: 5 Stars
I got my iced tea maker at Costco ($15) this summer and am delighted with it. I'm really into green tea so this was the perfect way to make my own brew of iced tea in a jiffy. I drink it by the pitcher so I use the tea maker almost every day. It is easy to use and clean-up is a snap. A summer must-have!Customer Review: Not the pitcher, it's the maker
Summary: 2 Stars
We've had two and both died within 6 months in the following way:
The brewer stops after only a quarter of the water is passed through, we have to push the "power" button over and over until we get the full pot. We tried all the different "cleaners" from basic vinegar and water solution to more professional but it doesn't seem that there is any deposits or build up (besides I have a Mr Coffee Coffee maker that has only once in the past 5 years seemed to have much calcium build up). The only conclusion is that there is some sort of timer or other that shorts out.
However two of these in 1 year next to my coffee brewer never failing in 5 leaves me to believe the maker itself is the problem.