The Ranting Chef does not get paid or receive any revenue from manufactures or retailers of products reviewed. I occasionally receive products that I am asked to use and see what I think. I take a look, try them out and tell you all about them.
I received a box the other day.
It was from Capresso. For those unfamiliar with the brand, Capresso is a leader in high quality coffee, espresso and cappuccino machines for the home.
What they sent me, their Iced Tea Maker, was right up my alley. As I’ve written on the blog previously, I had a diet Pepsi habit that was pretty intense. Some days I was drinking 100+ ounces of the stuff. When I decided to give it up over a year ago, I started drinking iced tea….a lot of it.
The Capresso Iced Tea Maker is a sharp piece of kitchen equipment. It comes with an 80oz glass pitcher.
The side view shows the unit with the water tank in the rear.
The tank has both a top lid for filling in place…
As well as it easily removes to take over to your sink. I’m going to give the unit a try so I’ve filled the water tank to the fill line.
Here is the filter basket. This comes out for easy cleaning and dumping of loose grounds.
You can put tea bags or loose tea in the unit. I decided to put 6 bags of decaffeinated Lemon Zing.
Fill the pitcher with ice. If you don’t have ice (office setting perhaps), you can put a lesser quantity of as cold of water as you can find. The Capresso Iced Tea Maker counts on having a quantity of ice or water to deliver the correct strength of tea.
Speaking of strength, this setting allows you to have standard strength up through extra strong. This can also be manipulated by the amount of tea you put in.
Press the button and the blue light indicates everything is working.
About five minutes later, we have freshly brewed ice tea. Note, this is actually brewing and steeping the tea. This is the best way to ensure great flavor.
My lemon tea was awesome! The Capresso Iced Tea Maker also comes with a recipe book for flavored teas including ones like Raspberry Peppermint, Southern Sweet Tea and Thai Iced Tea.
This glass was Mandarin Orange spiced tea. Delicious!
My Take: We have a winner! The Capresso Iced Tea Maker makes it really easy to brew a pitcher of iced tea and have it ready to drink in a handful of minutes. It has a really small footprint, so doesn’t take much space on your counter or cabinet. The cleanup is easy as the pitcher, pitcher lid and brew basket are all dishwasher safe. I have been living a year with instant iced tea mix. Brewed ice tea is better. It just is. By a lot. Also with so many varieties of teas on the market, and many fewer in an instant variety, this is a great solution for any iced tea drinker who likes to experiment with a variety of flavors. You can purchase the Capresso Iced Tea Maker here.
Rantings of an Amateur Chef 
Thanks for this review. I’m in the market for a new iced tea maker. My husband finally broke mines. (First he broke the lid, the he dropped the pitcher) so I’ve been hunting for a new one. I’ll definitely check this one out.
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I wish I had a bigger kitchen, this thing looks amazing!
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I walk around with a 30 oz. mug in my hand all day, filling and refilling with (hot) tea. But summer and cold tea season is coming… I have a standard bagged English Blend that is my “dang, my favorite tea is expensive, but I can gulp this all day” tea, but I will treat myself in the mornings on weekends with a loose Darjeeling or one of my favs, Buckingham Palace Garden Party Tea from englishteastore.com. I like their Scottish Breakfast as well, especially when I had a long night and waking up is hard…. this unit sounds great. Thanks for the review!
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check out a previous post of mine for my recipe for awesome iced tea. http://lorieb.com/2013/06/21/the-best-iced-tea-recipe/ Just use frozen strawberries or blueberries instead of ice cubes and either add the lemon juice and syrup at the end or to the bottom of your pot as brewing. This version is all natural. Many of the flavored teas have artificial flavoring in them that I cannot have.
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Thanks for the review–I may “donate” mine to work and get this one to stay on my counter 🙂
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