
Tea infuser startup Teforia shuts down - coloneltcb
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/27/1000-tea-infuser-startup-teforia-shuts-down/
======
Animats
_" The glass within the infusion globe and carafe are hand blown by a glass
artisan, one at a time."_

Oh, please.

A product specifically made for dummies with too much money is the Carver
Silver Seven amplifier.[1] Bob Carver, who was a very good amplifier designer,
offered a challenge in 1987. He would build a low-cost amplifier to exactly
match the transfer function of some High End amplifier. The outputs matched;
this was tested by running both amplifiers in parallel, hooked up to cancel
out. It worked. In blind listening tests, nobody could reliably tell the
difference. High End reviewers hated this.

So, partly as a joke. Carver designed the Carver Silver Seven. "Each hand-
rubbed, black lacquered chassis rests on four rubbery Simms Vibration Dampers,
which in turn rest on polished granite anti-vibration bases." Each amplifier
has 19 tubes. Per channel. The power supply is on a separate chassis. Each
chassis is almost half a meter deep. There's a four minute delay on power up
for careful tube warming.

Audiophiles bought it.

Carver's successors then came out with the Silver Seven 700. This has _twenty_
tubes, weighs 100 pounds, and costs $35,000. Per channel. Presumably someone
is buying that.

[1] [https://hometheaterreview.com/carver-silver-seven-mono-
vacuu...](https://hometheaterreview.com/carver-silver-seven-mono-vacuum-tube-
power-amplifier-reviewed/) [2]
[http://www.bobcarvercorp.com/silverseven700](http://www.bobcarvercorp.com/silverseven700)

~~~
heeen2
At that point it seems more like a functional piece of contemporary art,
commenting on the absurdness and all.

~~~
petra
Signaling is an important human need. Everybody deserves it.

~~~
Animats
I know a couple who blew through more than ten million dollars "signaling".
They're now broke, divorced, and unhappy.

~~~
petra
Wow. that's sad.

And i was just kidding about signalling being a right. I think it's far better
to avoid the status race, as much as possible. for example, in Amish
communities, there's relatively little of that, and they are, according to
survey, "as happy as billionaires".

------
arkades
They may not have understood their market, either. Most people who go out of
their way to get good whole leaf tea enjoy the process, the tea ware, etc.
It’s like people who enjoy guns and accessories for guns? This is trying to
sell them a gun at 10x markup, without any details on the quality of the
shooting, and promising they’ll never have to buy any accessories for it.

It’s priced for very high income tea enthusiasts, with features that strike
against everything a normal tea enthusiast enjoys.

For $100 and cheap packets this would fly, targeting people who currently
don’t care about that (tea bag users.) But then, the margins would be shit and
you’re trying to compete against an already simple and cheap tech.

What demographic were they hallucinating?

~~~
goldenkey
Their demographic is tea drinkers who are ignored by the coffee industry. We
have all these coffee makers that have k-cups, but nothing for tea. And tea
bags are 2nd rate, they float above the water depending on the tea, and never
brew right. It is for sure directed at a more premium market, people who care
about quality. But I wouldn't say that market is vanishing - they got their
price a bit wrong. The prices they are selling at now will result in a
conplete sell out. The classic teaforia infuser works on any tea..not just the
sips containers. Id like to see them come back in style - I dont think this is
the end for a great glass on glass tea machine. They did not sacrifice on
purity or taste, much respect to Teforia.

~~~
doesnt_know
It's just called "getting a decent tea bag" and works pretty well.

The flip side is of course brewing with real quality leaves, but it's more
expensive and is more effort. They both have their places, unlike this
machine.

~~~
goldenkey
To make good tea you have to control temperature, pressure, steeping time, and
water volume. The teforia microbrewer does what a teabag won't, let alone an
inefficient kettle. I purchased 2 Teforia's at the discounted rate. The
machine has its place.

~~~
arkades
You know, if I weren’t a tea enthusiast myself, all that smoke you’re blowing
might obfuscate something.

Here’s how I manage to control all those variables without a thousand dollar
tea keurig: 1) one time, just once, I measure the volume of my tea cup. This
is good for, you know, the life of the cup. 2) I throw an infuser on a scale,
and throw teaspoons of tea in until I’ve hit the the right grams/100 ml. I now
know how many tap of loose leaf are right for that cup.

3) I enjoy black tea, so boiling is fine. If it’s a day I’m feeling like a
green or an oolong, I’ll dump a food thermometer probe into my kettle - it’ll
beep at my desired temp.

4) I pour the water in the cup, stick in the infuser, and throw 5 minutes on
the timer that comes with every iPhone.

Just so we are clear, the everyday cup of tea looks like this: throw 2 tsp
leaves into infuser, boil water, rinse leaves, stick infuser in cup, let sit
five minutes.

Oddly, with all the magic of “a timer on my phone,” my daily cup is controlled
for temp, pressure (I’m not changing altitudes here), steep time, and water
volume. And All it cost was an 8$ infuser.

But, sure, buy up all the 1000$ kettles you can grab.

~~~
fleitz
I have a machine that does all this it was $200 Canadian, which I assume means
it’s $160 US. It was still kinda over priced.

~~~
JeanMarcS
I have a Special-T machine I paid 69€ and order tea at 0.30cts each that are
very good. Only available in some European countries alas. (Not affiliated,
just happy customer !)

www.special-t.com

------
kup0
Good riddance to over-engineered niche luxury products like this that ask you
to spend hundreds of dollars to achieve the same results you can achieve for a
few dollars.

The loss on the human side (jobs, etc) is sad, but I certainly don't shed a
tear when this stuff doesn't succeed.

The Juicero was essentially an expensive pair of hands. The only thing the
Teforia MAYBE offers, if I'm incredibly generous about it, is the pressurized
steeping, but there is no way that it makes enough of a taste difference to be
worth it over traditional western or gongfu brewing. I'm also not convinced
that it's actually better, and anecdotal experiences from Teforia buyers don't
really help because when you pay $1000 for your tea infuser, of course you're
going to "think" it's better. I bet blind taste tests would come out quite
differently.

Let's even say the result does actually taste better, even under blind
testing. There is no way it tastes hundreds of dollars better. Why would
someone spend that much on a slight taste improvement? It only makes sense for
people with incredibly high budgets/income. Tea enthusiasts already control
all the variables (temperature, time, etc) and can and do make great tea using
gaiwans and teapots. The Teaforia solves a non-existent problem.

------
fleitz
Ok so a few years ago I bought the most ridiculous tea maker ever, it does
everything put the tea in and the water, and it takes the tea out when it’s
done and will keep it warm too. It cost $200 and I thought it was kind of over
priced but my wife loves tea so i got it for her for Xmas.

Even does this thing where it dips the tea in and out ask it brews / infuses /
whatever tea lingo is

$1000 to make tea and I have to buy the tea from the company? No way Jose.

------
dreamcompiler
First, if you're going for the razor-blade model, your razors need to be
_cheap_. Second, if you're the only place where customers can buy blades, your
market will be more limited than one where your blades are the best, but you
have blade competitors.

------
0xbear
Can’t wait for a $1000 toilet paper holder startup, with no less than $100m in
venture funding. They can write it in Go or Rust, and use deep learning
running on FPGA to detect when you’re low on paper, and order it from Amazon
automatically.

~~~
pesfandiar
What if toilet paper squares had a sequence of hash codes, you know,
blockchain-style?

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
Machine learning AI startup, toiletoria, uses block chain to dispenses toilet
paper according to the size of your ass which it determines using AI
technology installed on your phone and saves you money on toilet paper. Not
compatible with Android less than version 5. Must use toiletoria branded
toilet paper.

~~~
kawera
Using image recognition !

------
kazinator
The word "reality" has no place in this sentence, and "educate" is on shaky
ground: _However, the reality of our business is that it would take a lot more
financing and time to educate the market ..._

------
kaitai
This is what makes middle America laugh at SV... meanwhile, see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15305086](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15305086)
about funding for breast pump startups (a product actually used by millions
that people expect to pay money for, which hasn't improved significantly in
decades).

As other commenters say clearly what the breast pump startups need is a
blockchain.

------
goldenkey
Everyone here is criticizing Teforia but what about some of what they did
right? I just ordered 2 classic infusers, because they built a machine that
can accept their teas AND any looseleaf tea you buy, and brews it wonderfully,
better than most of us could accomplish without overly babysitting the tea and
using pressure devices like the french press. You will honestly not taste tea
with as much flavor as the teaforia infuser extracts - thats a huge
accomplishment. Their device didnt do any BS K-cup opening through sharp
prongs, with a messy garbage bin. You simply scan the tea and dump it in the
infuser. Honestly, I think the company may have issued a forclosure but
through the sale volume with the discounts they are offering, the investors
will be impressed and change their mind about teaforia. Sure, the initial
prices were too high but there is a market for what teaforia created.
Sometimes we have to stumble and rid ourselves of greed before we let our
precious creations become more commoditized, ie cheaper. I forsee a 3rd party
market for teaforias becoming pretty large if TeForia shuts down. The sips are
cool but the device is really the magic.

~~~
BugsJustFindMe
> _brews it wonderfully, better than most of us could accomplish without
> overly babysitting the tea and using pressure devices like the french
> press._

You say "overly babysitting", but which part of pushing the "170F" button on
the $50 temperature controlled electric kettle with easy single-press presets
and then twisting an egg timer is so hard that it needs another $950 and then
special multi-dollar packets and, omfg, internet access to a cloud service? I
agree with the other commenter. It definitely sounds like you work for
Teforia. Also like you aren't thinking honestly about how easy it is to make
tea.

~~~
goldenkey
I don't work for Teforia. I like their product. I love tea. A kettle doesn't
control pressure, nor does it use a small volume of water. ie microbrewing. So
with an egg timer you can control steep time and temperature but not much else
and not very accurately. The taste is the difference, bitter vs flavorful.

~~~
zdkl
I'll bet you the price of one of your machines that you won't be able to
blind-taste the difference between how I brew a cuppa and your machine.

I don't know maybe you're just terrible at making tea the usual way but it
doesn't have to be that way.

