A tea bag is a disposable bag that is meant to make it easy and convenient to infuse your hot water with the tea of your choosing. It is a convenience item, and over the years bagged tea has picked up a reputation for not being as good, as fresh or having as clear a flavor as loose leaf tea. This isn’t true of all brands, of course, and it really has very little to do with the tea bag itself. The bag is still a great way of easily infusing your tea. That said, you’ll want a high quality bag, and while you can find high quality paper tea bags, the Tea Bag Tea Infuser is definitely a step up from most designs. Designed to look just like a regular tea bag, this stainless infuser sits upright in your glass on its silicone base and can be lifted with its silicone tab when your tea is ready. It isn’t disposable, but it brews any loose leaf tea with ease and it is easy to clean. And even if you’re not the type of tea drinker that typically uses bagged tea, you have to admit that this particular “bag” is definitely a cut above the rest.

Rubber ducks aren’t just for bathtime any more – not unless you’re planning to take a big mug of hot tea into the tub with you because the Tea Duckie is a rubber duck and a tea infuser all in one. This miniature rubber duck serves as the lid of a metal mesh basket that holds the tea of your choice and also keeps the basket floating as it infuses your tea. You can leave the basket out if you want to keep the duck as an accessory for your mug after your tea has steeped, if you want to keep up the cute factor of this little tea gadget.

The worst problem you can have with a tea steeper – apart from winding up with one that has overly large holes which allow tea to escape into your cup – is having a metal steeper that is prone to rusting after use. You won’t have this problem with these Steepware Tuffy Tea Steepers. These steepers are made of silicone, so they are durable, flexible and rustproof. They have a plastic frame that gives them their shape and allows them to sit on the rim of a mug, but the silicone cones of the steepers have a unique collapsible design so that they can fold up flat when not in use. This makes for easy and convenient storage – not that tea steepers typically take up a huge amount of cupboard space, but a flat kitchen gadget always fits in better than a bulbous one!

This Tea for 2 Set is a little silly, but extremely cute. It’s a bunny-topped teapot sitting atop two matching teacups. The bunny lid is actually a tea steeper, so there is some function to the form here.  That said, I’m not going to trade in my regular strainers or teapots for this set. This is primarily because this set is a bit small for me. I actually think that this would make a great gift for a child, given the bunny peeking out of the top. It’s a chance to enjoy (i.e. be exposed to) some more interesting, loose-leaf teas and still have a whimsical tea party with mom, dad, grandma, or an imaginary friend.

If you’re a tea drinker, you might start to realize that it’s hard to walk by a new tea infuser in a store without at least taking a look at it, if not taking it home. Copco SnapTea Infuser caught my eye right away, thanks to its bold coloring, but impressed me with its design once I had picked it up. This infuser is designed to sit on top of a cup and brew one serving, rather than being used to steep a whole pot of tea. It looks a bit like a flower (or a scifi flower pod) when it is closed, but the base snaps apart to form a wide ledge that sits on the rim of a mug or cup while your tea steeps. Once your tea is done, the infuser closes to form a handy drip catcher. The only downside is that the infuser isn’t really designed to stand up on its own, so you’ll still have to find somewhere to set it down to avoid getting tea on your desk, even with the drip catcher in place, unless you want to take it to a sink soon after brewing. For a fun-looking tea accessory, I wouldn’t mind this one minor flaw – especially since the drip catcher will keep it from dripping on the way to the kitchen sink.