HIC Kitchen Large Barrel Tea Infuser, 18/8 Stainless Steel, 2-Inch

Been using this product (Stainless Steel Tea Bag Squeezer, by Harold Import Company, Inc.) for two years (since March 2010) and it is truly excellent! I'm writing this review to refute the criticisms of those folk who seem to have jumped to conclusions without having used the product for very long. It's possible that the one I received, two years ago, was made of a superior stainless steel versus copies now shipping. However, in the last few months, the product has got strong positive reviews, so it seems that they're still shipping the same quality. Yes, it flexes a bit. When I first got it, I thought that it was flimsy, and manually bent the forks a little bit inward. I expected to have to do this quite often. But, in two years I've never had to do it again. The forks flex a little but always go back to exactly where they started. Someone complained of the squeezer being too small. I've used many squeezers before this one, and this one has the largest squeezing area of the good quality squeezers. If someone could identify one with a larger squeezing area, plus the excellent qualities of this one, I'd be most interested! Someone else complained of burnt fingers. There are, of course, several ways to avoid burnt fingers when using tea bags without a string. One way is to use a small dessert fork to lift an empty corner of the tea bag out of the tea, against the side of the cup, just enough for your finger tips to hold. One squeeze for the top half of the bag, one squeeze for the bottom half of the bag, and you're done. When I bought this amazingly cheap item, I thought that the claim of stainless steel was likely bogus, and that it would start showing signs of rust and other corrosion. No. After two years, of being used several times almost every day, it still looks brand new! Forgive the exclamation point. I'm just amazed at the quality of this little item.

While I usually drink loose leaf tea using a tea ball , when making an entire pot would be excessive, a quick cuppa with a tea bag makes a nice stop-gap. This squeezer is definitely firm enough to squeeze all the moisture you might reasonably want to squeeze from a tea bag without heat or mess. In fact, a brief experiment just conducted reveals that it is sufficiently unyielding to allow you to break the tea bag through excessive force should you so desire. Its functional and effective, and the designers have got it about right. Its small and easily rinsed and stored. Its inexpensive. There are a lot of tea drinkers in my extended family and every last one of them has settled on this squeezer (thats 5 households), though in a couple of cases this preference was only established after a certain stubbornness (a family trait) was overcome -- an insistence on trying everything else first! But the bottomline is they've all come around to the same conclusion in the end. So, if you're looking for an effective tea bag squeezer, look no further. My whole clan recommends it!

very good quality, gave less stars because felt it would have been better to be a bit longer.

I was so happy with this style tea infuser that I’ve bought more to use at work. The super fine holes mean less tea leaf particulate in your tea compared to pretty much any other infuser I’ve ever used. There is a simple fix for something a couple of reviewers mentioned. For very fine teas, some leaves can float out the hole in the lid where the chain attaches. However, if you fill your cup with hot water to just below the lid of the infuser and then wait a few seconds, the tea becomes wet and won’t float and most of the air in the infuser gradually escapes. So as you slowly fill past the top, only air comes out that hole - no leaves. Seems some users just rapidly pour the water in the cup so air and some dry tea gets forced out that hole into their beverage. Taking a few extra seconds makes for a really gray cup of tea. This infuser is strong, easy to clean and goes in the dishwasher no problems.

After tea bag is done steeping, squeeze the bag over the cup, then throw the bag directly into the garbage can.. Squeezing gets all the flavor from the tea bag and none of the wet drips. Rinse the squeezer and stand it up to dry. Its ready for your next cup! Also dishwasher safe. I love it and have given these squeezers to other family member tea drinkers.

This thing is pathetic. I've had one that looks like it for years, at home, but I needed one at work, as well, so I ordered this. As soon as I pulled it out of its package I noticed how thin it is -- MUCH thinner than my old one. You can't even get a decent squeeze on your teabag without bending the thing in on itself. Absolutely useless. DON'T BUY!

Great tea bag squeezer that gets every single drop out of a tea bag. The part with the holes in it which actually squeezes the bag is as long as a regular tea bag is wide, so it works perfectly, especially for single-cup size tea bags - larger bags such as those that can be used for tea pots need several squeezes in different spots to get all the tea out. But the stainless steel is pretty rigid so that enough pressure can be applied. Well made and worth the money.

I am scratching my head over reading these reviews. I bought this because everyone talks about how great and useful this gadget is. I disagree and am gravely disappointed. To begin with, the product description (at the time of this writing) does not give us any dimensions whatsoever. Let me give those to you now. The tongs are 5 inches long and 3/4 of an inch wide. That's the size of the whole tong. Now see that gripper where all the holes are? That's only 3/4 of an inch wide and 1 1/2 inches long. Also, it is well below a millimeter thick. My spoons are twice as thick as these tongs are. I have an average single-use Green Tea by Lipton teabag which is 1 1/2 inches wide and 2 1/2 inches long. See the difference? The tea bag is nearly twice the size as the tongs, rendering the tongs totally useless. Finally, dugi303 is right. It does bend and personally I did better using two table soup spoons. I can't imagine why anyone is saying these are great. It's like I'm missing something, but there it is. If Amazon will allow me, I shall post pictures as examples. UPDATE: Sorry, I forgot about the pictures. I'll try to get to that this weekend, but that's not why I'm updating this. I see that another reviewer has said that the product is not what is pictured, that is wrong. Though I hate the little thing, it is exactly as pictured... except for the fact that there is no way to tell its scale.