Mr. Coffee 3-Quart Iced Tea and Iced Coffee Maker, Blue

Great tea brewer. Looks good and brews excellent ice tea. Unbreakable nylon 3 quart pitcher. The price is high, but in this case you get what you pay for.

This Ice Tea maker is easy to use. The ice tea brews consistent every time (once you choose your strength). This was the main reason I wanted an ice tea maker. I don't have to watch the clock to make sure to take the tea bags out at the right time. Tea tastes the same no matter who makes it also. Tea is ready in 10 minutes. I have made tea 2 ways. In both situations, I add the water to the water line (this is the water that goes into the machine). 1st way is to add ice to the 3qt ice line before brewing. This option the ice teas is cold when it finishes brewing. However, for me it is too strong at first because the ice has not melted down to dilute the tea. 2nd way, I brew the tea. When it is finished, I add cold water to up to the 3qt ice line. Then I pour it over ice if I want to drink it right away. This is my preferred method because the tea strength is consistent from the first glass. PLUS, 3qts of ice will use up most of your ice in the freezer. The cold water added (from the tap) is cold enough to cool it down that a few cubes of ice will make it the perfect temperature. I use 3 Lipton ICE TEA (bigger bags) for 3 qts.

Why didn't I buy this iced tea maker years ago? I love it and can't imagine going back to the old fashioned way of making a big pot of tea on the stove in a stew pot. I bought this during a week when my whole family had been sick with the early flu of the season, and we were drinking liquids by the gallons to stay hydrated. After finishing off the two pitchers of iced tea from the fridge, I went without tea for a couple of days because I didn't have the energy--with 102 fever--to make a big pot of tea the old fashioned way. I figured there had to be a quicker, easier way to do it, so I did some online research and then ordered this Mr. Coffee 3-Quart Iced Tea Maker. It's the best thing since sliced bread!!!! However, the recipe they provide for sweet iced tea is a disaster! Don't try it. After my first two disastrous sweet tea batches, I searched the Internet for customer recipes. This only takes about 15 minutes. SUPER SWEET SOUTHERN ICED TEA I grew up in North Carolina where super sweet Southern Iced Tea is served at every restaurant and in nearly every home. It's too sweet for my taste, but I accidentally made some when trying my Mr. Coffee Iced Tea Maker recipe the first time. 1.) Fill pitcher to 3 Qt water line. Take basket out. Pour water into reservoir. Replace basket. 2.) Put 3 Luzianne Family Size tea bags (fluffed) in the basket. Close the basket. 3.) Fill pitcher to 3 Qt. water line. 4.) Add 1 1/2 cups sugar to pitcher. 5.) Put lid on pitcher (open part facing machine). Slid pitcher to tea maker. 6.) Plug in. Turn on. 7.) 5 minutes after the Tea Maker's brew light goes out, take lid off and stir until sugar dissolves. 8.) Fill pitcher with handfuls of ice until it is full. Stir to melt ice. 9.) Let pitcher sit on counter for another 5 minutes or so until the ice melts. 10.) Then put pitcher in fridge for cold iced tea that is ready to drink right away. LIGHTLY SWEETENED ITALIAN-AMERICAN MINTED ICED TEA WITH LEMON My Italian grandmother, who was born and raised in New York City, always grew a pot of mint during the summer for her favorite summer drink--Lightly Sweetened Italian-American Minted Iced Tea with Lemon. It's the best iced tea in the world!!! My mother and I learned to make it, and followed in the tradition of making this tea all summer from a potted mint plant in the back yard. During college, I grew a massive mint plant during an Organic Gardening course. Twenty years later, I still have that pot of mint and use it for my iced tea. Now that my mother and I live in Florida, the mint plant grows year round which means we get to make this delicious iced tea year round! 1.) Fill pitcher to 3 Qt water line. Take basket out. Pour water into reservoir. Replace basket. 2.) Snip a generous handful of fresh mint, lightly crush it with your hands, and put it in the basket. 3.) On top of the mint, add 3 Luzianne Family Size tea bags (fluffed) in the basket. Close the basket. 4.) Fill pitcher to 3 Qt. water line. 5.) Add 1 cup sugar to pitcher. 6.) Add 1 Tbsp. lemon juice to the pitcher. 7.) Put lid on pitcher (open part facing machine). Slid pitcher to tea maker. 8.) Plug in. Turn on. 9.) 5 minutes after the Tea Maker's brew light goes out, take lid off and stir until sugar dissolves. 10.) Fill pitcher with handfuls of ice until it is full. Stir to melt ice. 11.) Let pitcher sit on counter for another 5 minutes or so until the ice melts. 12.) Then put pitcher in fridge for cold iced tea that is ready to drink right away.

I live in South Florida where we drink iced tea like water. I saw this item after having trouble finding a heat-proof container to make tea with and decided to give it a try. After using it a couple times, I like it! The iced tea is excellent and it's much less trouble than boiling the water and brewing it manually. I do, however have a couple things that you should know about this product before you buy it. Some reviewers have complained that it's flimsy and that it leaks. Well, it is all plastic, it's very light weight, and it does feel flimsy. Having said that, it works fine and makes very good iced tea. The dripping problem is because the filter basket, which should keep the remaining wet tea bags from dripping after the pitcher is removed, doesn't work well. The trick is to leave the pitcher in place for a couple minutes after the brew light goes out to let the basket completely drain, or remove the filter basket first so it won't drip down the front of the brew unit. It is also important to have the entire unit on a flat surface and not have the power cord interfere with the pitcher docking with the brew unit. The whole thing is so lightweight that it doesn't take much to have the pitcher not dock correctly, hence (I think) the complaints about the leaks. I'm not sure what rocket scientist at Mr. Coffee decided to make the filter basket white, but it's about as dumb an idea as you could have. This is TEA, and tea STAINS things. I can already see that keeping the filter basket clean over time will be a challenge. Please remember that you should never use soap and water on a coffee or tea maker as the residual soap will ruin your brew. You should only rinse it with fresh water and clean it with vinegar once every few months to remove any stains. If the filter basket had been black, the staining wouldn't even be an issue. The instructions call for the use of a 4-cup filter basket. None are included with the product, so you'll need to make a trip to the supermarket to purchase them. Making iced tea in this unit is a two-step process. First you fill the brew unit with water, then you fill the pitcher with ice. If you're making 3 quarts (the maximum you can make in this model) you'll need a lot of ice. You can certainly make less, but be prepared to empty out your icemaker if you are making 3 quarts. The good news about this method is that the iced tea is ready to drink when you're finished brewing it. No other cooling is necessary. The bad news is that it takes a lot of ice to do it. I'll report back after using the Mr. Coffee iced tea maker for a few months and see if I find anything else that you should know. In the meantime, for the price, this is a pretty nice item.

For an iced tea drinker, this is the machine to get. I have had the 2 quart Mr Coffee but can drink through one of those in a day or less. Other tea makers have at best a 2 quart capacity. I did make sun tea until there was the salmonella warning. For instant iced tea, add ice cubes to the pitcher when making. I've taken to using cold tap water for the brewing water and the pitcher. I have multiple pitchers and make a new pitcher when the in use one is getting low, leave out the new pitcher to cool then refrigerate. I make decaf tea using 3 quart sized tea bags or loose leaf flavoured tea in a coffee filter. If your water is hard/has minerals the lines will clog eventually. I clean mine a couple times a year with a vinegar run or Des Cal. The cost savings in brewing my own tea over buying prebrewed tea, especially as I drink mine without sugar or with only a bit of raw sugar, is incredible. The maker is extremely durable, getting multiple uses per week for years before getting worn out. A very reliable, very inexpensive, extremely easy to operate way to make iced tea. One warning: Once the 'on' button has been depressed and the machine is plugged in, it will start the brewing process, so be sure to have the tea ready to brew unless you know the 'on' button hasn't been pressed. No way to double press it to stop.

Almost a decade ago, some friends gave me a Mr. Coffee Iced Tea maker for my birthday. I used it several times a week, every week, from then to recently. Alas, perhaps that's too much or perhaps it's just bad luck, but it stopped functioning properly. Unable to subsist without my daily iced tea (and having banned sodas to get my disobedient triglycerides back under control), I rushed over to my PC and popped onto Amazon. And, here we are. If it wasn't morning, I would be sitting here typing this with a glass of iced tea on a coaster next to me. I love this contraption! Now, I see lots of reviews on here related to teabags. I'm a loose tea guy, so this is for those of you who like that style of "cooking". For my purposes, using 3-quarts as the basis, I put in three tablespoons of loose tea and then top it with three tablespoons of sugar - all in the filter inside the brew cup. No mixing later, thank you. My setting is just a smidgen below the strongest setting. I use the full amount of ice cubes, coincidentally exactly the amount my LG fridge produces, and let it sit for a while to get all the dripping done. Then it's off to the fridge. Interesting tidbit about my new version: The original one I owned had a tall round container. It was unwieldy in the fridge and I ended up usually just making 2-quarts at a time and using cleaned half-gallon plastic milk containers. When I first saw this squarer version, I thought, "meh", but the shape fits perfectly on my fridge shelf and now I can make 3-quarts at a time. Sweet! It's a great product in any style and makes a superb "pot" of iced tea. Because of its speed, I can also use it for parties and BBQs, because it brews so fast (several minutes, allowing for a good drip). If you love iced tea, this is your machine. If you only like iced tea, well, this is still your machine!

I was hesitant at first but after trial and error it's very easy to use to make sweet tea as that was my intent for getting this. Measure up the water line as it'll say in the directions, dump it into the maker and then put the teabags of your choosing into the tea holder. Make sure to leave the teabag strings out if you can. Before turning the maker on, put a cup of sugar (more or less depending how sweet you want it) into the container and then turn the maker on (the button turns orange when its on) and stir the sugar every so often as the tea is being made. The tea will get hot enough so the sugar melts. Being careful if you can and take out the teabags once the maker is done (the button will automatically turn off) and let them sit in the container to soak for a little bit. After that, you can put as much ice as you want or none at all into the container and drink it from there or leave it in the fridge. That is how I do it! The only complaint I would have is that the lid is a bit feisty to be put onto the container. But other than that, cleaning the container, the lid, and the tea holder is very easy as that's all you would need to clean. I would recommend this to anyone looking to make automatic sweet or unsweetened tea :)

This tea maker works GREAT. A lot of the reviews helped me determine the best way to make tea the way we like it. Here's what I found out... We don't like our tea watered down, so I didn't use the iced tea directions that came with it as it’s designed to make just over a quart of tea with the rest ice. We wanted to have a full pitcher of tea, let it cool, put in the fridge, then add ice later. Valuable lesson that I learned... Do NOT fill the water in the pitcher beyond the "Water 3 qt line” (which is just over a quart of actual water). It doesn't seem like you're putting much water into the machine, but if you try to put a lot more water into it, it'll come right out the spout in the front and the little hole that's in the back (I made a big water mess the first time trying to put more water in). The machine will actually fit about 1.5 quarts of water, but I found that when I put that much in, it didn’t brew the rest of the water and had some tea backed up into the tea bag basket. Here are the steps that I used to make a full pitcher of strong, sweetened tea (my family likes Celestial Raspberry Zinger Herbal Tea): 1. Fill the provided pitcher with water to the “Water 3 qt” line (filtered, if you have it); again, it’s just over 1 qt of actual water. Remove the tea basket holder and pour the water into the machine. Put the tea basket holder back in. 2. If you plan on making a full pitcher of tea, put 12 tea bags into the basket, slide the water spout back over the top of the basket, close lid, and set the switch on the front to "strong" (modify to fit your needs). 3. Put the pitcher securely in front of the machine with spout under the opening (see photo). Push button on the side to turn it on and brewing will begin (takes about 10 minutes to brew - power switch light on the side turns off when it’s done). It'll fill the pitcher with about 1 quart of actual tea. We wanted a full pitcher of tea with NO ice, so... 4. Carefully open the water reservoir again (the steam is HOT) and remove the basket but KEEP the same tea bags in the basket. Using a separate pitcher, fill machine with just over 1 quart of water. Turn the machine on again to brew adding to the current tea. This fills the provided pitcher to about the 2 qt line. 5. Repeat step 4 once more to get 3 full quarts of tea! 6. OPTIONAL: Pour the 12 tea bags into the pitcher to let it steep about another 15-20 minutes (to get the most out of the tea bags). If you like it sweetened, ADD 3 TABLESPOONS OF STEVIA IN THE RAW (calorie-free, natural sweetener) or whatever your preference. Let cool for a bit then put into the fridge. Serve over ice. It turns out PERFECT. The other awesome perk of this tea maker is the design of the pitcher. It fits perfectly on the door of our fridge and even on a short shelf (see photo). Just be careful of tea spilling out of the spout as one side of the lid is an open spout for brewing, and the other side is a straining spout, so there's no "closed" option like with a circular pitcher. Just something to be aware of. I highly recommend!