This item works well and makes great tea. I keep it in my office to brew tea daily while I'm working and it makes tea making easy and enjoyable. I love that it has settings for various types of loose teas, which allows me to put some silver needles in the loose tea container, move the dial to white tea, and forget about until later when I come back to pour a cup of perfect tasting tea.

So far I have been very impressed with the Zarafina tea maker. I thought it might be difficult to clean after use, but was pleasantly surprised that it is easy to keep clean. Requires a little bit of experimentation with green tea. I recomend brewing green tea on mild strength for the first infusion which steeps for 3 minutes at 170 degrees. The second infusion works well on medium strength. Some green teas should not be made in the Zarafina because of shorter steeping times required than the Zarafina can offer. LuShan Clouds and Mist green tea is one that should not be made in the Zarafina. If you drink the recommended 4 to 5 cups a day of tea for anti-oxidant benefits then the Zarafina is for you. It makes a consistent good quality brew without the hassle. It is also fun to watch the tea being brewed through the ingenious clear steeping chamber.

I got this tea maker for Christmas and have loved it, making 3-8 pots of tea a day. It's even good for green tea, despite some other reviews--the key is to brew green tea on regular or weak strength and to use only the amount of tea the instruction booklet recommends. That said, I am on my 4th tea maker since December. The first 3 worked wonderfully for weeks then the basket would not sink at the right time or at all. This time, the tea maker just stopped dispensing. Customer service is great, friendly and helpful, but I'm sure that I will need replacements past the 1-year warranty. If you are a total tea addict, it's the best tea maker around. But be ready to use your warranty repeatedly and to struggle until the replacement arrives.

This was an excellent way to take tea at any time during the day but now my warranty is up and I can't have my FOURTH zarafina teamaker replaced.

All three of my zarafina machines have taken similar routes:

1) Starts to leak (I don't know WHERE it comes from but I do know I have to bring the tray to the sink every 3 brews or so because my teapot is SWIMMING)

2) Tea won't dispense (no idea why...but after a certain point the machine simply decides it wants you to do the grunt work)

3) Will not switch on (usually this is remedied by plugging in the machine again...but still)


In sum, I paid almost $200 directly through the company to get one of these, and the machine is perfect until about 6 months after use. I gave it a good run, I mean, if my warranty was still valid, I would have owned four of these machines consecutively. I suppose I need to move on to the next tea maker---problem is, not many of these are on the market (which probably explains the price of this one) but at any rate I think anything that costs $200 should last longer than 6 months.

Or maybe I'm just a stickler for quality.

Zarafina Tea Maker Suite with Ceramic Tea Pots, Cups, and Serving Tray Gave this as a gift and my daughter-in-law LOVES it.