As if your coffee chugging buddies need another reason to think that your tea drinking habits are wacky, comes the Sharky Tea Infuser. This tea making gadget has a perforated metal bottom that allows the loose tea to brew. A grey rubber fin shaped top keeps the infuser floating in your cup. Anyone else hearing the theme to Jaws in their head right now? You can find the Sharky Tea Infuser at Amazon for $4.96
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Love this. The fin also lets you remove the tea ball from your cup without a spoon!
@Smythe Good point. I hadn’t thought of that!
It is cute, but not at all functional.
Most people using loose tea (not prepackaged tea bags) are serious about tea. A good infuser allows more water circulation, thus a mesh type infuser with more volume is what you want, not something with a few small holes like that.
I tested a Bodum infuser of similar construction but perhaps 3x the size against a mesh infuser about 2x the size of the Sharkey here. The Bodum infuser took about 3 times as long to develop tea into the same color as the mesh infuser, so I don’t think the Sharky would work well enough for any kind of tea other than the type that you don’t want too much flavor of.
The best infuser for a mug is the type that is a mesh that is about half the size of the cup itself. Failing that, a large mesh ball would work pretty well. Don’t bother with these tiny infusers with a few holes. They may make good bath toys, but tea infusers they are not.