Hey it’s April, so let’s keep it going. One post a month is about the best I can manage.

In “get off my lawn” news, my iced tea maker finally bit the dust. It’s a very very single purpose appliance, I could probably just get the same end result (lots of iced tea) with a pot of boiling water and a tea strainer, but I like my tea maker.

In fact, I like it so much, I bought a second one, way back in the 2010s sometime. My first one, the pump went out and it wouldn’t pump the heated water up over the tea basket anymore. My second one, same brand, same overall design, I was even able to use the same tea basket and pitcher from the first one! Hooray! More tea storage capacity!

So, I figure, I’m two tea makers in, Mr. Coffee is on to a winning design here, so if this new one ever goes out, I’ll be able to replace it.

Wrong.

So very wrong.

And now I’m super grumpy with my options.

As noted, my tea maker died. So I went online to find a new one. Now, these were like maybe $25 new, so I was prepared to go $35 for something shipped to me. I looked for my exact model, and there it was! But they’re all remainders now, and cost north of $200. I mean, I like it, but not for 10x the price.

That avenue closed, I looked to see if Mr. Coffee had made a replacement. Why yes, yes they had. And it sucks.

No, I’m serious. In every possible dimension, compared to their previous version, it sucks.

First off, there’s the capacity. The old model? 3 quarts. Ideal. Lasts me about 2 days in the summer. The new one? 2 quarts. Why the drop of a third of the capacity? Well, it turns out, the tea basket, which used to be in the water heater part of the setup, now sits in the top of the pitcher instead. I know you’re having trouble imagining that, because it makes no sense. But it’s true. Now the top third of the pitcher is taken up by where you put the tea. It’s removeable though, so . . . once you’re done making the tea, you now have a pitcher that is 1/3 too big for the contents.

Who cares? Me. Because the old pitchers fit very nicely in my fridge under the ice maker, space that was too short for a gallon of milk (yes, poor design there, Samsung) but perfect for my tea pitcher. No more! Now it’s too tall . . . but it’s too tall for no good reason. It’s literally empty space.

So I get less tea, in a less convenient package, that doesn’t fit in my fridge as well as the old version. What can I point to that’s better? Nothing. It still takes up the same amount of space on my counter, and still has largely the same parts: water heater, tea basket, pitcher. They’ve saved me nothing.

Thus, I had to go with my last option: abandoning Mr. Coffee all together and going with a new brand. Which I found. It’s 3 quart capacity, which is a must. It doesn’t waste space in the pitcher, which is nice.

The pitcher is too tall still . . . and it has this “double wall” design that basically turns it into a container for wash water when you put it in the dishwasher, but at least I still get the max amount of tea.

Plus it does have a reusable filter, and can also make iced coffee, should I want it to (iced coffee is also nice, for those weeks when I don’t need any sleep).

Anyway, there you have it. Mr. Coffee’s planned obsolescence drove me to a different brand, when I could have simply been on my third iteration, and had three pitchers that all worked, keeping me drowning in tea all summer. Or, you know, I could have repaired the tea maker, if it was designed in any way to ever be repaired instead of replaced, but that’s a blog post for another day. And likely another author.

Happy Spring!