I’ve been a devout morning coffee drinker for a few years now. However, I have recently been trying out tea in the evenings after dinner as a way to replace a late night sweet snack attack. As luck would have it, a Magisso Teacup arrived in the mail for me in a most timely fashion.

The Magisso Teacup does not look like a traditional teacup. Rather, it is a thoroughly modern interpretation that looks like what you might expect a teacup in the future to look like. The cup is designed to allow users to steep loose leaf tea to their desired strength directly in the cup. It has a triangle bottom that lets you tilt the cup to the filtered side of the cup to steep tea and then tilt it to the other side to stop the steeping.

To use the teacup, first tilt it to the side with the filter so that this side is lower. Next, add in your loose leaf tea to the filter nook, then pour hot water over it until the leaves are completely immersed. When you are ready for the tea to stop steeping, simply tilt the cup to the other side so that the filter is now higher and the tea is out of the water. The leaves remain in the filter nook with no need to remove a wet filter and find a spot for it. When you’re all done, you can tap out the used tea and the filter screen is removable to completely clean the area or help scrape out some wet stuck on tea.

I must say, it is easier to use than I make it sound! The hardest part of using it was initially placing the filter screen inside the cup, but only because I had never done it. Once I figured out how to snap it into place, it was not an issue whatsoever the next time around.

But I will be honest when I say that I went into using the cup with a few concerns. First, there is no handle on the teacup, so I was worried that the cup might be too hot for me to hold without it since the cup is plastic. However, this did not turn out to be the case at all. The cup was warm to the touch but not too hot. Second, I was also worried that the cup would be too big to hold in one hand because it has a wide mouth and appears to be bigger than a traditional teacup. Again, I was wrong and was able to hold it comfortably in one hand. Third, I thought that for sure I would pour hot water everywhere while attempting to get it in the nook where the tea steeps. Once again, this did not turn out to be an issue. The water went right where I wanted it to without so much as a drop out of place.

The Magisso Teacup works like a charm. It is so simple and straightforward that I was over-thinking it.

Using this cup actually prompted my first foray into loose leaf tea. Previously it had seemed too troublesome of a process to load up some tea filter and hope it would seal properly and not let tiny bits of tea leaves into my drink and potentially get stuck in my teeth. So I really can’t imagine drinking loose leaf tea through any other manner now.

I even tried to push the limits of the teacup by putting a regular teabag in the nook area where the loose leaf tea is supposed to go. This worked out somewhat well, but probably best to stick with the intended form of tea. I have yet to try cutting open a teabag and pouring the contents into the filter nook, but I imagine this would work too.

I like using this cup at night because I can place it on my nightstand and not have to worry about getting up again to throw out a teabag or take up extra space on my tiny nightstand by bringing along something to place the used teabag on. Having the ability to steep the tea directly in the cup and stop the steeping with a simple tilt is a clever and practical solution I would have never thought of, but I am glad that the folks over at Magisso did.

The Magisso Teacup is available in seven different colors. For more information, visit www.magisso.com.