The ingenuiTEA Teapot is an ingenious infusion brewing system. Made of food grade plastic that is both dishwasher and microwave safe, it makes brewing tea a simple process.

You fill the mug with water to within an inch of the top. You can either fill it with boiling water or heat the water in the microwave.  Once the water is heated, spoon in your favorite loose leaf tea and steep for 3 to 7 minutes. The brewing time is determined by the type of tea you are brewing: 3 minutes for light oolong and green teas, 5 minutes for most black teas and 7 minutes for dark oolong, herbal and white teas.

Place the teapot on top of your cup and the valve in the bottom of the teapot opens to allow the tea to stream into your cup. Lifting the teapot stops the stream and leaves the tea leaves in the bottom of the teapot, leaving you with a perfectly brewed cup of tea. Cleanup is easy, either in the sink or the dishwasher.

The ingenuiTEA Teapot from Adagio Tea is rapidly becoming our favorite way to brew loose leaf tea. Available in both a 32 oz and 16 oz size, it's simple to use, easy to clean and inexpensive.

When we want to treat ourselves to freshly ground and brewed coffee, we use our Cuisinart DCG-20 Coffee Grinder.

This small but efficient grinder features a removable lid that has lines for measuring the amount of coffee beans you wish to grind. Simply pour the amount of beans you need into the grinding compartment, replace the lid and push the button for the amount of time necessary to grind the coffee beans to your desired brewing strength, usually anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds.

Remove the lid and pour the ground coffee into your coffee maker. Cleanup is quick and easy. With a little experimentation, you'll quickly learn the amount of coffee beans to use and the amount of grinding time needed for your perfect cup of coffee. 

The Bodum Assam 17oz tea press is an attractive and very functional small quantity tea brewing system. Although it technically brews more than a single cup of tea, we sometimes like to drink tea brewed slightly stronger and in larger cups. It can be used with either loose tea or tea bags.

Start by inserting the plastic strainer into the pot and putting your teabag or loose tea into the strainer. Boil your water and pour enough over the tea to fill the pot to within about 1/2 - 3/4 inch below the spout. This insures that when you put the top, with the plunger pulled up, onto the pot that the plunger will sit on top of the water. Wait for 3 - 7 minutes, depending upon the type of tea you are preparing, and then depress the plunger, ending the steeping process. Now you're ready to pour yourself a great cup of tea.

Clean up is easy with all parts being dishwasher safe. Treat yourself to a great, inexpensive, attractive, easy to use small quantity tea brewing system - the Bodum Assam 17oz Tea Press. 

This is the product that started it all for us. We received this as a Christmas gift nearly 3 years ago, and not a day goes by that we don't use it. The Hamilton Beach 3-in-1 Hot Beverage Center makes a great single cup of coffee or tea.

It features a filter basket with a removable permanent filter and pod holder, a removable water reservoir for easy filling and a multi-level cup rest. When brewing coffee or tea, you can use loose ground coffee or the convenient coffee pods, or loose tea or tea bags, in the permanent filter. For larger travel mugs, you can stack 2 pods or tea bags by using the pod holder combined with the permanent filter. We've found the best way to measure water for each cup is to fill the cup to the top and then pour this into the water reservoir. By doing this, it eliminates the chances of having an over-filled or under-filled cup or travel mug. 

The Hamilton Beach 3-in-1 Hot Beverage Center, with it's attractive black and gray colors and small (7"x 7") footprint, has a permanent spot on our kitchen counter. All removable parts are dishwasher-safe. It's fast, inexpensive, easy to use, and makes a great single cup of coffee or tea. 

No doubt many of you have discovered the convenience of brewing a single cup of coffee using the individual coffee pods sold in grocery stores or online. You may also have noticed the lack of variety available in coffee pods and thought "is that all there is?".

We found the answer to this question: The Perfect Pod pod maker by Get Organized. Now we make our own single serving coffee pods using all our favorite coffees. We have even tried blending different coffees together with great results.

The Perfect Pod takes up very little space. It comes with a stater set of 40 filter pods and is very simple to use.You press the red button on the unit. It takes about 90 seconds to heat up. You place one of the empty pods on the bottom half of the unit, place the amount of ground coffee for the strength you like in the filter pod, bend over the top flap of the pod and close the lid of the pod maker for 3 to 5 seconds. Remove the coffee pod and you're ready to brew.

We usually make enough pods, in all the varieties we like, to last us for 1 to 2 weeks. We store the pods in individual air-tight containers labeled with the names or flavors of each variety. The freshness, flexibility and savings make The Perfect Pod pod maker by Get Organized a great addition to our enjoyment of freshly-brewed coffee, one cup at a time.

If you're like most tea drinkers, your first experience drinking tea probably involved making tea using a tea bag. Tea bags offer convenience, easy clean up and a decent amount of variety. However, what if your favorite tea was not available in tea bags? Perhaps you have experimented with blending teas together to create your favorite tea blend. How would you take that blend with you to, say, your office without lugging around different containers, etc? The answer: make your own tea bags.

Introducing the Perfect Pod Pod Maker by Get Organized. We originally purchased this neat little appliance to make coffee pods, using our favorite ground coffees, for our single cup coffee maker. Imagine my surprise when I came home one day to discover my wife making her own tea bags by putting her favorite loose leaf teas into the same empty pods. There is plenty of room for the leaves to unfurl inside the pods and they can be used to steep tea the same way you would use conventional tea bags. Now we both have a great way to make, store and bring our favorite loose leaf teas with us to work or when we travel without needing to bring anything else.

We have been using the Perfect Pod Pod Maker by Get Organized to make our own tea bags for over a year and we love the convenience, flexibility and cost savings.

Whether you have just discovered the pleasure of drinking tea or have been enjoying tea for awhile, it is important to know that there is a proper method to make tea. Start with the correct amounts of water and tea: one cup of water and one teaspoon of loose leaf tea or one tea bag. It is also important to make your tea using the freshest water: bottled or filtered is much better than tap. 

Next, use the right temperature for the water itself. Hardier teas, like herbal teas, black teas or dark oolong teas should be steeped in boiling water, around 212 degrees. Teas that are considered more delicate, like light oolong teas, green teas or white teas should be steeped in slightly cooler water, say 180 to 190 degrees.

The time you take to steep your tea is also very important. Black teas taste best when steeped for 5 minutes. Herbal teas, dark oolong teas and white teas taste best when steeped for 7 minutes. Green teas and light oolong teas taste best when steeped for 3 minutes. These times are guidelines; experiment to find what suits your taste.