M. V. Bellamy
Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2016
I've been experimenting with a variety of cold-brew options, and this travel bottle is my latest one. I don't actually take the bottle with me anywhere, but have found it to be a very convenient way to brew my coffee at home. One bottle fills my giant tumbler (no ice), which is about how much coffee I need to get through the day with two children. I've found that if the grinds are too fine, some does come through the filter, so I will be adjusting the next time I grind a bagPrevious cold-brew methods include a French press (hard to store in refrigerator with plunger up, didn't get the very last bits of coffee), nut milk bag (great btw and could make large quantities, but got messy and some grinds got in if you pour with the bag still in the pitcher), Mason jar and coffee filters (a little time consuming to filter each morning).I'd currently rank this at the top of my methods. It's convenient to store in the refrigerator, easy to clean, and makes the precise amount I want each day.
Home and Hyde
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2016
Horrible product. I was hoping this was going to be a great alternative for me to save money instead of going to the coffee shop. I prepped everything, put the grounds/filter into the water, screwed the lid on and shook. After lightly shaking, the grounds just seeped right into the water therefore making the product undrinkable.I thought I did something wrong so I tried it again from start to finish and it had the same problem. Ended up just throwing the bottle away in frustration.
Outta Here
Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2016
We've been making, drinking, and loving Toddy coffee for over 10 years. Finding similar coffee on our travels was always a challenge. We've tried taking the Toddy maker with us, sans the glass carafe, when we vacationed in a lodging for more than 5 days. Difficult to find an unbreakable container to take the place of the glass carafe. And we didn't always want to have a full batch of coffee to store. Tried the Takeya. The coffee was ok; weak and silty and the plastic carafe cracked in our luggage during transport. Bought the EZE Homegoods cold brew maker travel bottle as a last resort. Nice travel size, easy set up and cleaning, and sturdy bottle. The "cons" in other reviews are valid: screw threads difficult, mesh too large. We take our time when setting up to ensure the screw threads are correctly lined up. No mesh screen is ever fine enough to filter cold brew coffee. So we just travel with a small Melitta pour-over cone and paper cone filters. It does a great job filtering out the silt. Just do it and quit expecting a metal mesh filter to be adequate.The coffee concentrate is enough for a day and we set the bottle up in the evening for the next days' coffee. (12 - 14 hours minimum for our taste.) My hot coffee Toddy concentrate to water ratio is 1:2. With this travel bottle brewer I have to reverse that ratio to 2 parts concentrate to 1 part water. But, hey! It's not a Toddy maker and it works great for us on our travels. I'm pleased with this travel option and much happier that I can cold brew an adequate coffee concentrate while traveling.
Brett L. Schuchert
Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2015
If you want to make your own cold brew coffee when traveling this is a good option, and it is why I made the purchase. I took this on the road for 3 weeks along with a hand grinder and sure enough I had fine cold brew coffee. However, I'm used to a large pitcher and this one takes a bit longer to get good strong coffee.Pros:- Small- Works- Generally doesn't leak (though you have to be careful there)- Good 2 - 3 services how I drink itCons:- It takes longer to brew if you follow instructions (see below)- The filter has a top that connects somewhat badly to the top and it can fall off - it doesn't cause the brew to fail in any way, but just a bit sloppy- The instructions lead to longer brew timeBottom line: this works and it is very convenient for travel, but I would not recommend this for home use because of its inconvenience.The instructions recommend filling the main container to the top of the grey rubber line you see in the picture then inserting the filter and shaking. This works but if you do this, expect > 24 hours to get a strong brew. Instead:- Use a coarse grain on your beans- Hold the filter in the bottle and slowly pour water through the beans (this takes a long time)- Attach filter to its top then put the whole thing together- Then shake it a bit and do that a few times over the next 24 hours
Lisa
Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2015
Update: I bought my cold brew travel bottle in Oct 2015, and it's now June 2017. It still works great- no problems. I have to take a moment to give the company a HUGE, HUGE shout-out though, as I lost the top cap to my bottle and when I emailed them to ask if they had replacements, they offered to replace it no charge. No shipping, no charge for the replacement. So I thought how great, wow, I'm impressed. Well, to top it off, I received a completely new bottle, no questions asked- not only the cap, an entire new bottle at no charge. I'm blown away at how quickly they responded and how kindly they did as well. One of the best experiences I've had with a company in awhile- thank you so much!!!I was looking for something simple to use to make iced coffee at home to avoid a trip to Dunkin Donuts or elsewhere just to get an iced coffee. When I heard about cold brewing, I thought it would be easy to try, and this product proved it was really that easy to do. Coarse beans are better than finely ground with this, but all you have to do is put ground beans in the filter according to how much coffee you want and how rich you want it, fill the rest of the water bottle with water, and let it all sit in the fridge overnight. It really is much, much less acidic in taste than other iced coffee I've had, which also gives the coffee a smoother texture and taste too. I am not a big coffee drinker other than iced coffee, and usually it's decaf at that on an occasional basis. That being said, if I'm going to have iced coffee, I want it to be worth it and this definitely makes some good iced coffee!