Hario ChaCha Kyusu "Maru" Tea Pot, 450ml

What a great elegant looking tea pot with great flexibility and functionality.THE GLASS POT - is thin and lets the color really shine thru. Because of its thin nature, care is required when handling. Primarily when placing the top on without the infuser in it. But you weren't really going to use this in a boxing ring. If you ever used a thin glass tea cup, you know how beautiful the color can be from the tea. This is what adds to the elegance of this tea pot. This pot is about 24 oz. I get 3 glasses of ice tea out of it at about 8 oz a glass not including ice. I use the Keurig to put the hot water in so I don't know about heating the pot from a heat source.THE INFUSER - is well made with a functionality I didn't expect. Its wide mouth/shallow design has advantages over a tall narrow infuser. The tea leaves in a tall narrow infuser tend to crowd each other not allowing water to get fully around all the tea leaves. the leaves stack upon themselves and the leaves that need to expand topple each other. This infuser is very different. Think of it as a giant swimming pool for your tea leaves. Water gets all around the leaves with no crowding whatsoever. Great for pearl teas. The one problem I had was with lipton tea. Lipton black tea in bulk has almost a powder consistency. This very fine powder does get thru the infuser. However I also tested Rooibos, Eucalyptus, Hibiscus, Peppermint & Chamomile and had no problem with sediment at the bottom.BEST PROCEDURE - I found was to put the hot water in, place the infuser in, and then dump the tea in and very very slightly stir and let the water to the rest. This gives the Rooibos time to expand before it sinks and makes it difficult to get thru infuser mesh. Also regarding the lipton tea mentioned above, I found a neat little feature that makes this tea pot very versatile. I like lipton black tea for the base in my ice teas. Because of the powder characteristics of lipton tea I now use their tea bags rather than their bulk version. The beauty of this pot is that the round shape of this pot leaves a gap between the the infuser and the glass. It is a perfect fit for a tea bag running the string thru the pouring spout gap. What this means is I can put hibiscus & rooibos in the infuser, and place a lipton tea bag outside the infuser as mentioned above all steeping at the same time and not interfering with each other. If this isn't flexibility in what you want to do with your tea, I don't know what is.CLEANING - is a breeze. Even with Peppermint or Eucalyptus that can get pasty and want to stick to the sides. Just flip the infuser over and knock it on your other hand and most everything comes out. Let it dry for about 30 minutes and the remaining amount easily falls out. I really don't bother rinsing, its that clean. Bottom line is, this is a really great tea pot.

I have bought this exact teapot four times now. TL;DR This is absolutely the best glass teapot I know of.Once as a gift, and three times for myself, this teapot is my favorite. I first bought it back in 2018 as my first tea pot. I did a lot of searching to make sure I got something that would work right, and I nailed it. My subsequent purchases have been from unfortunate breaks (my fault), the most recent being a few days ago. Let me break it down for you:Quality: This teapot is nice, made in Japan, durable, and has a clean, well finished look. It does NOT smell like a factory, and feels very sturdy.Design: This pot is short, and holds 700ml (About 3 cups worth). Plenty for a small group or a nice pot for yourself. The pour is nice and easy to control (no fancy spout needed), and the handle does well enough (never had a problem, even with big hands). The best part? The wide mouthed mesh basket is fantastic, and the reason this pot originally caught my eye.Having a large, roomy basket allows the leaves to spread out and steep more evenly, which will always make better tea; this also means its easier to clean out the leaves and pot when finished. It baffles me that those hard, skinny infusers are now the norm for pots, they are simply awful and a huge pain to clean, not to mention it constricts your leaves. This pot has none of those issues, which is alone worth some huge points.Value: When I broke my pot the other day, after lamenting my own stupidity, my first thought was "I'm going to have to wait a few days to make another pot", I wasn't even considering the cost. Originally ~16 USD when I bought it, it seems to float between ~19-24 USD now, (probably due to the high inflation), but that price easily worth it many times over. Sure you could get some poorly designed, glass pot from China and save a few bucks, but why?Cons: There are a few criticisms I have. First, the mesh basket is, for whatever reason, made in China. I have no clue why this is, but I would definitely appreciate if this was a fully Japanese made pot from, start to finish, even if the price was slightly higher. Secondly, The mesh basket is the only part that seems to age. After around 3 years my original basket was looking rough and warped (though still functional). I'm not the best at knowing how to treat certain materials, so maybe cleaning it a certain way could have helped? Not sure, but eventually the basket will start to age if you use it the way I have.Final thoughts: Buying this pot again was a no-brainer. After four years, this pot continually serves me well and remains my daily driver. Whether you are a new drinker or veteran, this will NOT let you down. Despite my small complaints, I think this deserves five stars, especially compared against the competition.