On the surface, a cup of tea is a simple thing to make. Heat up some water, insert tea leaves, and wait for it to steep. The wait time is a matter of taste, and it is absolutely crucial to remove the bag or infuser before it’s too late. Otherwise, you end up with a liquid that’s almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
[Adrian] and his son would often find themselves lost in conversation during the steeping process and let it go too long. But that was before they built ChaiBot, an automatic tea minder. This fine-looking machine uses an old CD drive to raise and lower the tea bags, which are held by a thin piece of stainless steel mesh. Once the bags are lowered, [Adrian] pours hot water into the cups. The weight of the water is detected by a capacitive sensor under the cup cutouts, and this triggers the timer to start counting down to the perfect cuppa.
One of the coolest features of ChaiBot is the built-in circulation. Every minute, the bags are lifted out briefly and reinserted, disturbing the water so the steeping is more uniform. Since the final step to making great tea is drinking it before it goes cold, ChaiBot sends a push notification to [Adrian]’s phone. Be sure to check out the demo after the break.
Here’s another CD drive-based tea bot we covered a while back. It’s not quite as pretty, but it gets the job done. If you’re not one to wander off while your tea steeps but prefer not to watch a clock, here’s a compact timer that’ll fit in your pocket.
FIRST
But really. I waste so much tea from tossing the bag in and thinking I’ll grab it right away and then disappearing to come back to burnt tea
I made something similar a while back (http://goo.gl/Qk5wTY) but this takes it to the next level!
I like yours better
thank you!
a double dunk at the end just isnt going to cut it, I dunk mine 4 or 5 times to get all the tea goodness out of the bags.
I wring/squeeze the teabags.
you shouldnt do that with green tea, makes it bitter
Near perfect.
But the metal is going to conduct some heat away too fast – dropping temp below that desired for a good steeping(tm).
I wonder if bags could be clipped from above instead ?
Not to add rusting (it looks like steel to me) and odd taste and a degree of isolation of the tea from the water.
It also should have more movement of the bag (10-15 seconds instead of 1 minute).
Even if the perforated metal part is not that good looking, the rest of the tea bot looks classy.
I suggest to have a tea while pondering what people wrote here :)
If I was to guess without reading the whole build log, I would speculate they would probably have used stainless steel.
Second paragraph of the description says it’s stainless steel. Just what my tea ball is made of…
That’s very neat.
A little gripper to hold the bag and then release it in the bin would be a nice addition. Just so you don’t burn your fingers on the hot wet WA bag
I don’t drink tea and am forever making my wife’s tea too strong.
Very nice.
Perfect opportunity for the HHGTTG reference. So, when do we see a bot that makes a jynnan tonnyx?
+1 for the HHGTTG
Wow I’ve been doing it wrong, leaving the bag in as I drink it down to empty, and finally sucking on the bag. Great job on the bot!
Ever try a bag of Earl Grey in a cup of black coffee?
I thought I was the only one to suck out all that tea goodness!
Yeah, all this fussing around just isn’t my cup of tea!
The water have a huuuuuuge influence on the taste of the tea. So, try to check that.
I think my housekeeper will love this
Sounds perfect! Great job on the bot!