I have a confession to make. I’ve been keeping a really awesome secret ever since World Tea Expo. The good news is that I can finally share it with all of you. Teforia is an exciting new tea infusion device that I have been really blown away by. For years the Breville One-Touch Tea Maker has reigned supreme. While I still love my trusty kettle, there is so much technology available today that it is surprising that nothing has topped it until now.
Teforia utilizes a proprietary Selective Infusion Process (“SIP”) and eco-conscious packaging to completely change how we approach home tea brewing. Each individual tea package is embedded with RFID technology so the machine actually knows exactly what tea you are going to drink and how to make it. How cool is that? Teforia is sourcing their own high-quality teas as well as partnering with Mighty Leaf and Smith TeaMaker and Samovar Tea. The machine can be used to brew any type of tea but the premeasured packets will contain a perfect 5g. I thought it was cool that there are different size packages for each type of leaf. This is great news for tea with long and spindly leaves because they won’t get crushed.
Teforia is operated using a companion app that gives users complete control over the tea that ends up in their cup. Teforia can alter the brewing method to emphasize certain aspects of taste such as floral or earthy. They also take things a step further in a way that I have not seen before. Tea drinkers can now adjust the levels of the chemical components in their tea such as caffeine and antioxidants. Science!
I had the opportunity to meet with Allen, the founder of Teforia, both at World Tea Expo and in NYC a few weeks ago. We did a comparison tasting using Teforia and a Teavana Perfect Tea Maker. I couldn’t help but giggle at the irony because I work at Teavana and demonstrate how they work for customers all day long. He brewed a vibrantly green matcha dusted sencha using room temperature water in both devices and the difference between the two was extraordinary. The color of the liquor was a dramatically deeper shade of green in the cup made by the Teforia. What really blew my mind was the taste. Teforia’s cup had a rounder, fuller mouth feel with a much more pronounced umami factor. Allen was kind of enough to give me the rest of the tea in a to go cup and I can tell you that I was definitely in heaven sipping it on the subway.
“On a trip to Asia three years ago, I had a cup of tea that changed my life and transported me back to my childhood,” said Allen Han, CEO and founder of Teforia. “That discovery led me to realize how the $90 billion dollar global tea market largely consists of commercialized brewing methods and treatments. Most tea drinkers don’t know what they’re missing, so I wanted to create a way to perfect the process of brewing tea while honoring its tradition.”