Oggi Lustre Clarisa Carafe

In the picture on Amazon, this carafe looks very solid and well made. Upon arrival, you'll find that it's very cheaply put together, with a plastic lid, poor alignment of seams, very cheap plastic/metal combinations in other parts....overall not anywhere near the quality of a Bodum or other well-made kitchen brand. I returned mine immediately.

This is a product that I like and use every day. I really enjoy tea. I use the carafe so that I can brew a large batch, enjoy it over the next several hours, and have it remain hot.

For a serious tea drinker such as myself, this is a good product. First of all, has a nice, large capacity, which allows me to brew a lot of tea at once. Second, it does an excellent job of keeping hot liquids hot. I have not tested it for its ability to keep cold liquids cold. However, I regularly brew tea in the carafe before going to sleep, and then leave it overnight. When I wake up in the morning, I can enjoy the tea immediately and amazingly, it is still hot. I have even brewed tea in this product and left it for even longer 24 hours later, the tea is still warm.

The construction is sturdy. The wide base relative to the top ensures that it will not tip over. Even if filled and laid on its side, the liquid does not leak out unless the valve is opened. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, there is no way to lock the valve (the red lever pictured above) so that it cannot open if the carafe should tip over and hit something. Overall, though, it is pretty leak-proof.

There are two small downsides to this product. First: I originally bought this because I wanted a stainless steel vessel for brewing tea. I had been using a polycarbonate Nalgene with an infuser attachment, but I was concerned about exposure to bisphenol A from drinking hot tea out of this bottle every day. The Nalgene also did not keep the tea hot for appreciable periods of time. This carafe solved the problem of the tea cooling too quickly, but I am still a bit concerned about BPA exposure. The body of the carafe is stainless steel, but the tea infuser and top piece are made of plastic. I am not sure if these parts are made with BPA. If you are buying this product with BPA exposure in mind, caveat emptor.

Second: After pouring some of the hot liquid out of the carafe, some room temperature air enters the inside of the vessel, cooling down the vapor that is left inside. This creates a vacuum inside and produces an annoying sucking sound as more air attempts to get through the seal. The sound is relieved by opening the valve, but it reappears within a few minutes.

Overall, a good product and worth the price if you enjoy brewing loose tea or being able to have hot coffee all day. An assurance that the plastic infuser is BPA-free would have bumped my rating up to 5 stars.

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This very same Oggi Thermal Carafe is being sold in at least two other links here on Amazon. This product is so poorly made, I felt it important to provide potential customers with that review here as well. I really wanted to like this because it looked so nice but fell way short of expectations. For the cost, I would expect quality materials and manufacturing. Sorry Oggi, this is a DUD! For the sake of your reputation, this would be a good item to discontinue.

I enjoy those restaurants that provide your table with a carafe of coffee. It is convenient for the patrons and the wait staff and I wish more restaurants would engage in this practice. For the reason of convenience I decided to purchase one for my personal use at home. I thought it would be perfect to keep in my office when I'm doing computer work or beside my favorite chair when I'm reading or studying.

I purchased this same product through a different vendor for a little lower price with a discount I was able to take advantage of. I was excited when it arrived and the first thing I noticed was how much nicer it looked than in the picture. Upon inspection however my excitement started to diminish. Right away I noticed that the spout, handle and dome lid was made of very cheap plastic. It is very thin and would likely not handle an accidental drop. The spout and top third of handle appears to be made from three different pieces of plastic fused together based on the visible seams and the seam on the handle is right where you grip it.

Later when I used it, other flaws became very obvious. First and probably most important is that is pours horribly. You have to depress the lever on the dome lid to raise the plunger and the beverage comes out at a very slow and messy trickle. The only way not to make a mess is to ensure that the spout is all the way down into my coffee cup. A deeper spout might have eliminated this issue. Also the opening in the lid might be too small because unless I completely tip the carafe upside down, it comes out in dribbles.

Also there are no finger grips on the lid so you have to use the plunger lever for leverage and with its cheap construction, it already has some side to side play and I just don't see it lasting much longer.

Lastly, the description states it can keep you beverage hot for up to eight hours. I have found that to be off by 6 hours! The only thing going for this is that it looks good. Due to its design flaws, cheap plastic material and poor manufacturing of the most important parts, this has become one of the worst products I have ever purchased.

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This item is pretty solid and does the job for the price I paid. It is true that the handle and dome is plastic and not metal but for the approximately $30 price it is still very good, and looks slick. The bulk of the charafe is the metal black portion which is intended to keep your drink at the temperature you want for up to 8 hours. I tested it and it did indeed last 7 or 8 hours, which is longer than a similar Charafe I bought online that was non-Oggi manufactured.

Overall, I still highly recommend. Of course if you want a super latest and greatest carafe the size of 54 ounces like this one, you'd easily be looking to pay three or at least two times more. This gets the job done for sure.

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I got this because it has an infuser and I could make tea and drink it all day.

Unfortunately the infuser is too small to allow tea leaves to expand, it's a piece of garbage plastic, and the holes are too big allowing tea leaves to escape.

After the first pot of tea using the built in infuser I had 2 issues.

1. tea tasted like plastic

2. i couldn't take the tea leaves out of the infuser since it's so small and narrow.

I'll have to use a different infuser. Hopefully the plastic taste is only from the infuser and I can use it as a regular pot.

EDIT (Dec 2009):

I was reading other reviews and someone recommended these bags to use (100 Finum Tea Filter, Large, Brown). I think this is the only way to use this carafe. I don't want it to be a waste of money... On the positive side, the carafe works ok and tea made with the paper tea bags tasted alright. So it's not a complete waste. It held tea warm for a long period and I like how the base is wide so it's tough to knock over.

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