Tea-boy

Kathy sent me a marvelous invention called a tea-boy. It appears to be from Denmark. It looks like a penguin with a top hat, but its beak holds either a tea bag or a tea ball, like so:


You carefully pour the hot water into your mug,



and then you set the timer on the penguin's side to your desired steeping time. As you turn the timer, the beak lowers the tea ball/bag into the mug.



The tea steeps, leaving you plenty of time to admire the tea-boy from all angles.



When the proper steeping time has elapsed, the tea-boy gives a nice ring and the beak automatically raises the tea ball/bag out of your mug. I wish I had a movie of this. It's great.



Now, I worried that the tea-boy would not do as well with a taller mug, or with a pot. A quick height adjustment told me that tea-boy could adapt to many environments.


This, to me, is a perfectly ingenious invention. Not only does it give you a consistent steeping time, but it is made to look like a penguin, for no particular reason. It even has a bow tie and a top hat, which is even more extraneous, but makes it even more perfect.

I assume that everyone now wants their own penguin tea-boy. Well, I don't know where Kathy got it, but I only found one site where it's sold. And it's sold out. Sorry, everybody. You'll just have to come visit me so that we can enjoy the tea-boy together.