Bodum Double-Wall Stainless Steel 0.45 Liter Travel Coffee and Tea Press Review

 Rating: 4 stars====================Product price: Check new Price in amazon====================Buy with Secure Transaction Amazon now…====================
Product DescriptionA good cup of coffee or tea is always at your fingertips with the Bodum Travel Coffee and Tea Press. Made of vacuum-sealed, double-wall stainless steel with a colorful, silicone, non-slip grip, this travel press lets coffee lovers enjoy their daily fix on the go. It's quick and easy to use: add coarsely ground coffee, pour in hot water, seal the lid and take it to go. After four minutes, regardless of where you are, press down on the plunger and enjoy. For those that prefer tea, the Bodum Travel Coffee and Tea Press works equally as well. The Bodum Travel Coffee and Tea Press keeps beverages hot or cold for several hours while maintaining the aroma and flavors of a freshly pressed cup

Bodum Double-Wall Stainless Steel 0.45 Liter Travel Coffee and Tea Press, with Bonus Tumbler Lid, 16-Ounce

Customer Reviews:* I tested the heat retaining capability of this aesthetically pleasing looking travel press/container as follows: while boiling water (in an electric kettle), I warmed the container with hot tap water. I then filled it with just-boiled water, put on the "free extra lid" that it comes with (i.e., a regular sipping lid rather than the sipping lid that also holds the plunger), and I then put it on a middle shelf of my home refrigerator. The first time I did this I set a timer for 4 hours. When the 4 hours was up the water was almost cold. I then decided it to just give the container a 1-hour test, and this time the water was hot - too hot to put my finger into for more than a second - and 145 degrees F on a meat thermometer (which can be used in water as it has a "boil test" mark for calibration purposes at about the 212 F mark).I also did an upside-down test, and as I anticipated, the travel press did not pass because coffee dripped out from the area around the spout when using the standard lid (i.e., not the lid that holds the plunger, which I expect would leak when upside down simply because of the fact that there's a movable plunger in the middle of it). I was not surprised, as travel mugs are not made for being carried upside down or on their sides.This press makes a nice cup of pressed coffee, and it works the same as my 8 oz. glass Bodum French press, and my 32 oz. stainless Bodum press. But it only works for me as a press if I transfer the pressed coffee to another container or cup after brewing it, because I happen to like my coffee with honey and half & half and there is no practical way to mix honey into the coffee in the container after brewing a cup using the press method. The instructions that come with the Bodum travel coffee press say to "Open the spout to add milk and sugar" to freshly brewed pressed coffee, but offers no suggestion as to how one might go about mixing these into the brew. So I think that as a press pot type container, this container would be best for someone who prefers their coffee black.If you visit Bodum's website you will see these exact travel presses (double-wall stainless with "free extra lid") with a list price of $29.95, so I am at a loss as to how Amazon came up with a list price of $40 (at least at the time I'm writing this review).The attractive box the travel press comes in (would certainly make a handsome gift for commuting drinkers of French pressed black coffee) includes the phrase "VACUUM TRAVEL PRESS" below the words "TRAVEL PRESS." The word "VACUUM" here obviously refers to the volume of space between the stainless steel double-walls of this travel press. The lids for this unit - the lid that has the plunger attached to it, and the standard lid - are adequate sipping lids and do not leak around the rims (each has a removable gasket), but they do not appear to be designed to maximize the heat retention of whatever hot liquid is in the travel press. They are not, for example, anything like the non-sipping lid of a 3 decades old trucker's stainless steel Thermos I own that to this day keeps coffee hot for hours.One problem I had more than once is that when unscrewing the plunger-lid, the plunger rod unscrewed itself from the filter, and the filter was left more or less stuck down near the bottom of the container. In order to get the filter out each time this happened, I had to hold the container over a sink and shake it downwards with considerable force, until the filter had budged enough for me to get it out with two fingers. What finally rectified this problem for me was tightening the filter onto the plunger rod.To sum up, based on my tests, this unit should keep coffee satisfyingly hot for over an hour in refrigerator-cold temps; sipping coffee from it in a room heated to 70F, my coffee (with half & half added) stays hot - much, much hotter than it stays in a standard mug or cup - for a good hour, and that's with the spout open the whole time; the stainless double-wall keeps the exterior stainless wall from getting too hot to be comfortable to hold, and the wide rubber grip enables users to pretty much avoid touching the steel at all; it makes a nice cup of pressed coffee, as good as any I've had at home and in cafes and restaurants; it is not really designed in a way that makes it convenient for users to mix creamer and powdered sweetener (or honey) into coffee that's been freshly pressed in the travel press - you could pour milk and sugar into the coffee through the spout as it says to do in the instructions, but then how do you mix it? - by shaking the container?; if the plunger rod is not screwed pretty tightly to the filter, the filter may stay in the container when the plunger-lid has been removed; it's a very handsome looking container (though I don't like that on either side of the nice, wide, rubbery gripping area, it says in raised letters, "bodum THE FRESH WAY TO BREW FRESH COFFEE & TEA"; what I don't like is that here is yet another coffee container that is also an advertisement - I suppose someday some folks will get paid to have brand names and marketing slogans and such tattooed on their foreheads, but I digress [I'm still feeling the effects of that last cup of pressed coffee I had made in my Bodum ;)]), but that's not that big a deal. The stainless steel is really nice looking; I could see these containers being sold in places like the MoMA gift shop. The container is wide enough for me to get an Oxo Good Grips Kitchen Brush (sold here at Amazon) comfortably inside for cleaning, yet it's slim enough to fit easily in the coffee container holders in my Toyota. Overall, I think the Bodum Travel Press is a nicely designed coffee (or tea) container, and I like it, and would consider buying one for someone (who likes French pressed black coffee) as a gift. * I received this through the Vine Program and found the unit to be very nice, even if I am not an orange person (I would have preferred black for the color). The cup/press body is very well made and the insulation holds temperatures (hot or cold). The rubberized grip makes holding the unit easy on your hands.Some things to be aware of if you want to be happy with this press:Believe the literature when they tell you to use course grind for your coffee! If you do not, you will have sediment in your coffee and also some small grounds. If you use large grounds and press slowly, you will not have any problems.The seal for the press and for the extra lid uses a removable O ring that fits up at the top of the threads for the lid. If you are not careful, the ring can slip down and make it impossible to correctly thread the lid into the press. If you ensure that the ring is properly seated, all is fine.Loose leaf tea works very well in this press. If you use cold water, ensure that you let the tea steep for a sufficient amount of time before pressing it.This is a very large cup! You might find it problematic to put into your cup holder in a vehicle as the height of it may make it easy to spill contents if you have not closed off the openings in the lid. In my Sienna Van the cup is tall enough to make me nervous on turns.This is a great unit if you travel a lot and prefer your own brand of coffee to what is available in hotel rooms!