Electric Tea Maker

Comment posted Mr. Coffee TM70 3Quart IcedTea Maker by Steven Visek.

Fantastic tea and a huge money saver!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I was really surprised by the negative reviews. We’ve used ours for a year and never had tea spill/puddle on the counter (I’m making tea right now as I type this and even tried to rig it so it would spill (by misaligning the brew basket) and couldn’t make it happen, so I’m not sure what is causing some to have that issue(it may be that those with issue have a brew basket where the area where it drips out is hurt). Also, I have always brewed on the strongest setting, so try adjusting that. It is vital that the spout of the pitcher be in the proper position, not be warped, and not be cracked. Also make sure to clean the brew basket regularly and it should be fully seated.

I grew up brewing tea on the stove and then putting it in gallon jugs in the fridge. I drank a bunch of it an had 16 sweet tea induced cavities when I first saw the dentist as a kid!! After dropping a pot of boiling tea and burning my foot, that was it and for years I drank Crystal Light…much safer for the waistline too, but it was never anywhere near as excellent! Over time I started to buy gallons of tea, sweet and diet(w/Nutrasweet), at the local store, but at $2-$3 per gallon it was too much, especially as I drink about 5 gallons a week myself!

When visiting my sister in GA my wife and I learned tea at the Walmart supermarket made with Splenda and loved it, but when our supermarket in PA finally got it it was $3-$4/gal.

Then my sister bought the Mr. Coffee iced tea maker and the tea was fantastic. She did note that the sugar didn’t dissolve well when place in the brew basket and she was right. She gave us our own Mr. Coffee TM70 last Christmas and we’ve found a way of using it that works fantastic, but won’t lead to immediately cold tea:

1) Fill with water but don’t overfill or it will spill out the back all over your counter.

2) Place the tea bags in the brew basket. We use one large “family size”(we use Lipton, a $3 box of 24 will make 12 gallons) as our supermarket no longer has a generic offering) tea bag per cycle (set on the strongest brew setting), though two or three regular sized bags will work fine.

3) Mix your sweetener (we use 1 1/2 cup per gallon of brewed tea) in a pint or so of water in the pitcher.

We use Splenda(a $6.99 bag will make about 8 gallons) which we buy in bags at the supermarket.

4) Run through one full cycle.

5) Fill with water a gain and place in an additional large tea bag or two regular size bags(leave the used ones in the brew basket) and run through a second cycle.

At this point the pitcher will be nearly full.

Typically I then pour it into a gallon jug and add a bit more water to equal a gallon.

I’ll usually will make 2-4 gallons in a row this way and stock the fridge. I just keep adding the tea bags in the brew basket until I make the last gallon and then throw all the bags away at the end.

We’ve had it now for a year and like it. I figure I was spending $10-15/week buying the gallons of tea(sweet or diet with Nutrasweet) at the store. That’s more than $500/year!! It would have cost $800+/yr to buy the Splenda tea at the supermarket. Using Splenda we buy in bags and Lipton bags cost about $1/gal. Of course with sugar it would be even less. We’re looking to buy a bunch of them now for Christmas presents, which led me to this site.

Steven Visek also commented

• Why can’t Mr. Coffee EVER get it all right?
  Rating:2 out of 5 stars
  This product has exactly one excellent point: the pitcher is made of a better material than the pitchers of all the others (and there have been many) I have owned. But: the pitcher has a poorly-designed handle that is hard to grasp and offers very poor leverage for lifting. Indeed, my elderly mother cannot even lift it due to the poor design, while she has no problem with the better-designed (but poorly made) pitchers of the TM3. I myself have had the pitcher fall out of my hand due to the terrible leverage and hard grip. I find myself pouring the iced tea, once made, into one of my older pitchers: you know, the ones that split after about two months of use.

  Why can’t Mr. Coffee just take their very-well-functioning TM3 and give it a pitcher made of the same material (but using the better TM3 pitcher shape)? They make all these different tea makers and every time they manage to screw up SOMEthing that worked well in a previous model, while adding maybe one improvement (or none) in each new model.

  Mercifully, these machines are not expensive: consider them an expense and not a capital item. The best solution for me so far is to keep using the TM3 and just keep buying replacement pitchers.

• Decent ONLY when it works!
  Rating:2 out of 5 stars
  Wow – fascinating to see I’m not the only one experiencing problems with this thing! It made fantastic tea the first few times I used it. In fact I was amazed that I could use the contents of of only 3 tea bags for making 2 quarts and still come out with tasty tea. After the first few uses but the infamous leaking problem started where I’d find about 1/2 cup of tea in a puddle on my counter when the brewing was finished. At first I thought it was just when I made 3 quarts worth of tea but then it started hapening with 1 & 2 Quarts as well. It doesn’t happen every time but it’s at the point where I’m worried to leave the machine unattended for dread of returning to a huge mess. I suspect the seeping basket is the culpret here. It fills up quick, is VERY slow to empty and is too small to be effective at preventing overflow.
• Leaks terribly
  Rating:1 out of 5 stars
  The Mr. Coffee maker has two problems. The thing leaks everywhere when making the tea and a small time after I got it, the pitcher started to split at the spout. While it makes brilliant tea, it is not worth the mess that it makes leaking everywhere on the counter.
• It leaks; doesn’t matter if the pitcher is lined up properly
  Rating:1 out of 5 stars
  It makes ice tea quite well. Unfortunately it tends to dispense the product onto the counter instead of into the pitcher during the last few minutes of brewing. I have taken fantastic pains to ensure the pitcher’s lip is securely placed underneath the brewers outlet port, yet it still leaks tea all over the counter.
• Never A Problem
  Rating:5 out of 5 stars
  I too had to chime in after seeing the negative reviews. All the tea drinkers in my household like the Mr. Coffee Iced Tea Maker. It brews perfectly and has never leaked. I’m ordering a couple more pitcher’s to cycle with the original. This method is so much better than those glass sun tea jugs – those always leaked and were hard to wash. Clean up is simple and the tea tastes fantastic!

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