The FRUIT INFUSION Flavor Carafe from PRODYNE

By Lorrie Baumann

We get some nice surprises in our mail here at Kitchenware News, and one day a few weeks ago, the package plopped into my chair while I was out at lunch held a nicely boxed FRUIT INFUSION Flavor Carafe from PRODYNE. At first, I wasn’t quite sure that I even wanted to give it a try, as a previous experiment with a similar product had led to a puddle of sangria that flowed across my dining room table until I turned away from my stove and noticed what was happening.

But I’m nothing if not game, so I gave the FRUIT INFUSION Flavor Carafe a try – hedging my bets by filling it with water after I’d tucked a few strawberries and a quartered lime into the strainer container and screwing it onto the bottom of the carafe until it was just finger-tight. After checking to make sure that there were no leaks, I tucked it away into my refrigerator door and left it there for the afternoon. The fact that it’s the right size to tuck away into the refrigerator door is definitely a point in the FRUIT INFUSION’s favor, as my refrigerator has an odd shelving arrangement around a deli drawer that puts storage space for tall items in short supply.

When I got home from work, I poured out a tall glass of water from the FRUIT INFUSION Flavor Carafe, and sure enough, the flavor from the fruit had diffused nicely into the water. Over the course of the next week, I refilled the water in the carafe several times, leaving the same fruit in the bottom container. Then after a week, I decided I was getting a little bored with the flavor, so I removed a couple of the lime quarters and added a wedge of lemon and a sprig of mint from my garden. That was delicious too.

After about another week, I noticed that the strawberries were looking faded from giving their all to my drinking water. The next time I was ready to refill the carafe, I took out the strawberries – and ate them – they were soggy but tasted deliciously of lime-strawberry. I quartered a plum and added it to the fruit container along with a sprig of lavender snatched right out from under the bees that have been buzzing around the flower bed ever since the lavender began to bloom a week or so ago. What started a couple of weeks ago with a resigned acceptance that I’d better give this a try has turned into a fun and rather creative celebration of our beautiful Arizona springtime.

The FRUIT INFUSION Flavor Carafe has opened easily each time I wanted to play with my fruit mixture and then screwed together again smoothly and without a leak. The carafe is made of crystal clear BPA-free SAN polymer, so it’s sturdy enough to be handled by children. Although, if there aren’t any children in the house, the Flavor Carafe can also be used to infuse spirits for one of my favorite warm-weather cocktails, which combines cucumber, basil and vodka – I just have to wait for my basil to grow again. I’m looking forward to that. It can also be used for flavored iced teas.

The FRUIT INFUSION Flavor Carafe from Prodyne has a 1.5 liter capacity, and Prodyne recommends replacing the fruit in the bottom after seven to 10 days. While my sample, the FI-50, is crystal clear, the carafe is also available with a “Touch of Green” green bottom fruit chamber and green lid (FI-50-G). They retail for $19.99.

This story was originally published in the May 2015 issue of Kitchenware News, a publication of Oser Communications Group.