Mr. Coffee 3 Quart Iced Tea Maker TM50P Review

I drink a lot of water throughout the day.  When I'm at work, I'm speaking almost non-stop for five 40-minute periods.  I keep a bottle of cold water close to me at all times to refresh my mouth and allow me to continue on with my lecture.  By the end of the day, I don't want to drink any more water.  I'm not a big fan of soda, either, so that pretty much leaves iced tea as the default drink.  We bought the Mr. Coffee 3-Quart Iced Tea Maker a couple of years ago so we could make our own rather than dealing with powders or expensive Snapple products.

It's extremely easy to use this machine.  The body of the machine has water fill lines for making 1, 2, and 3 quarts of iced tea.  After adding the water, you put the white tea basket into place and can use either tea bags or loose tea in a coffee filter.  You also can add sweetener to the basket at that time so it is evenly distributed throughout the drink.  The last thing to do is to add ice (again to the 1, 2, or 3 quart lines).  You can adjust the brew strength if you like: there are like 6 different levels between weak and strong.  (I use "strong".)  When everything is set up, you just open the slot at the top of the pitcher, push the pitcher snugly up to the body of the machine, flip the "brew" switch above the tea basket, and then press the power button.  It might sound complicated but I can get the Mr. Coffee 3-Quart Iced Tea Maker set up and brewing within 5 minutes.  NOTE: If you don't open up the pitcher slot or push the pitcher snugly up to the machine base, the tea may leak all over your counter.

Once the brew cycle has completed, the tea is still fairly hot and isn't ready for you to drink.  You have to chill it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours before its suitable for drinking.  The problem is that the pitcher that comes with this machine is HUGE and it takes up an absurd amount of space in the fridge.  I have found that its easier to just transfer the iced tea to a taller, narrower pitcher than to keep it in the Mr. Coffee pitcher. 

You can also brew iced coffee in the Mr. Coffee 3-Quart Iced Tea Maker though I've never attempted to do so.  There's a special black brew basket that you are supposed to use for iced coffee.  I really should try that out sometime because I do enjoy iced coffee. 

Mr. Coffee suggests handwashing the pitcher and brew basket but I've been throwing them into the dishwasher for years without any problem.  We paid about $20 for this product at WalMart.  We've more than gotten our money's worth out of it and have been extremely happy with it.  If you enjoy iced tea, you'll want to check out this iced tea maker.