Since it’s discovery by the Chinese emperor Shen Nong, tea was refreshing the man kind for generations. This 5000 year old drink eventually became the most popular beverage in the world after water. Largest tea producing nations in the world namely China and India are consuming most of their teas with in the country. Therefore tea is not traded around the world as coffee. As a result, tea industry is way behind coffee when it comes to innovations. In fact tea professionals are following coffee innovations. Anyway I would like to bring you 4 interesting technical innovations related to tea. The development of all these 4 items have been done about 4 years ago.

1. Tea Pi

This set us is designed to emulate commercial tea makers costing hundreds of dollars. The heart of the operation is a Raspberry Pi, making this one of the first Linux powered tea makers we’ve ever heard of. An Adafruit PowerSwitch Tail allows the Pi to control a standard tea kettle. The Pi monitors water temperature with a temperature sensor. A simple servo drops a tea basket into the water for brewing. When the time is up, the servo pulls the basket up and the tea is ready to serve. They had also planned to add voice control to his tea creation.

2.  ChaiBot. 

This device was designed by [Adrian’s] son [Oliver] to combat a common issue. Both father and son would pour cups of tea, then get involved in a project. By the time they came back, they had ink. ChaiBot steeps the tea for a set amount of time, stirring every minute. The mechanics of the project came from an old CD-ROM drive. A PIC16F887 runs the show, ensuring the steep time is accurate, and activating the motor drive. When the tea is done, an ESP8266 sends a push notification to the user’s phone. The project is housed in a wooden case that fits perfectly on the kitchen counter.

3. Eye-O-Tea.

With this gadget, Our tea cup can join the Internet of Things. This equipment essentially is a web connected coaster with temperature monitoring built right in. Temperature is measured with a Melexis thermometer. An Arduino Pro Mini reads the temperature and passes it on to a WiFi module. The entire device is powered by a LiPo battery, and neatly housed in a gutted cup warmer. On the cloud side, we can use ThinkSpeak and freeboard.io to make an interface we can access with the mobile phone. If the tea is too hot, Eye-O-Tea will let us know. It will also send us an SMS if we forgot our cup and it’s going cold.

4. Camper Induction Cooker,

A 2016 Hackaday Prize entry. [Siggi] wanted hot liquids on the go, but he didn’t want to fool around with heating elements. An induction heater was the way to go. A Cypress PSOC micro controls the system. Metal travel style mugs can be used without modification. For ceramic or plastic mugs (Tea With Nipun never recommend plastic mugs since those plastic micro particles can come in to the hot brew), a metal washer (hopefully coated with something food safe) acts as an immersion heater. The project is definitely a bit unwieldy at the moment, but I could see [Siggi’s] idea being incorporated into automotive cup holders. [Siggi] put his project on hold. I hope seeing his work on the front page will get development moving again.

One might argue saying that there is nothing better than a freshly brewed tea pot with loose leaf tea. That’s quite true but technical innovations are also vital for the betterment of any industry. Therefore as tea industry professionals we should have strategies to attract innovative people to the industry. These 4 Innovations are quite interesting, aren’t they ?

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References

Main Source: https://hackaday.com/2016/08/20/hacklet-121-tea-hacks/