I love tea, and this is a super good point. I’m a loose leaf in a sauce pan of water at a certain temp for a certain time person, at least when I’ve splurged on the “good stuff”.
I know one “tea guy” who insists on pre-washing the leaves, pre-heating his iron teapot with boiling water, etc… It’s a big ritual with him. If you offered him a machine to do all of this, he’d pooh-pooh it out of principle.
can’t imagine why a teabag is necessary.
some even frown on using a large mesh ball, as it crowds the tea.
Which is why i added that it’d be good to go all the way and test various common brewing methods to hit on if the Teaforia one really gives the best brew. I hardly ever make tea, and rarely buy loose leaf tea. The few times i have i just throw it in the pot and let it steep (generally green teas), the one exception being the Danedar black tea because it can become way too strong and the ground tea is more obnoxious to deal with.
How so? DRM is a perfectly meaningful term. It means Digital Rights Management. Or “Digital Restrictions Management”, to be more clear about it.
DRM is whatever enforces rules against the owner of a thing.
Normally, when you buy tea making equipment and some tea, you fully own that, and can do whatever you like with it. A normal tea kettle will brew any tea or other substance you might put into it. And if any rules are involved, it’s the owner who sets them. Eg, your friend can borrow the tea kettle, but only for a weekend. Feel free to make yourself some tea, but don’t use the special, expensive kind.
DRM enforces rules against the person who bought the stuff and diminishes their own ownership. So you own the tea maker, but it doesn’t let you use the tea you want with it. You own a movie, but the player will only play it a limited amount of times and won’t let you skip the obligatory warnings. You have a book, but can’t print a page. You have a song, but it’s bound to a physical device. Etc.
Thanks to DRM I will have to stop drinking tea and switch to whiskey.
By using this vague definition, any time a piece of software or hardware doesn’t let you do what you want it to, it could be considered some sort of “DRM”.
Time and time again Cory seems to conflate closed or restrictive hardware/software as “DRM” and it’s really not the same at all.
I would say the distinguishing characteristic is that DRM intentionally stops the user from doing what they want, and tries to make it impossible to circumvent the limitation by legal means.
In this case it’s very much DRM: There’s absolutely no reason why the machine can’t accept any arbitrary brand of tea, except that the company wanted to lock the user into it. There’s zero advantage to the user from not being able to use the tea they want.
This is seen by how they actually just removed this limitation, proving it wasn’t really necessary in any way.
Hell, if you watch videos on youtube you can see you pour the loose tea into the machine after it scans the rfid tag in the capsule.
Sounds like you can pretty easily circumvent it using legal means.
Restrictions are seldom about being advantageous to the user.
I still disagree that this is any sort of “rights management”.
Sounds like you can pretty easily circumvent it using legal means.
If it’s like the juice thing, it probably does not allow the reuse of tags, so to use your own tea, you’d have to keep on buying capsules of the official stuff. Which would go to waste, as once used for your own tea, the tag is now useless.
Restrictions are seldom about being advantageous to the user.
Sometimes they are. Such as operating systems not allowing you to format the system too easily, but still allowing to do it if you insist.
This kind of thing though is anti-consumer and should be illegal.
I still disagree that this is any sort of “rights management”.
Somebody else decides what you can do with your own machine. That’s the “rights management” – a third party decides what rights you have to use your own stuff.
Personally, I wouldn’t have bought the thing anyway- I have a Mr.Coffee that I make my iced tea with, when I’m wanting a gallon of the stuff. (Yes, I’m a heathen.)
Pretty sure that’s just considered an alternative to water here in Texas.
DRM has a very specific meaning and connotation. Just because a manufacturer places restrictions on how you should use a thing isn’t the same as being encumbered with DRM despite what you or Cory will argue.
Yes, I’m being pedantic but I’m so tried of this term being thrown around here for any restrictions that Cory doesn’t like. That’s why I say it’s essentially like 45 shouting #fakenews to address any criticism.
Ok, so taking a common definition of DRM:
“Digital rights management (DRM) is a set of access control technologies for restricting the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works.”
Would you say that is a fair definition? Or do you have a different one?
If it is a fair definition, in what way does a teamaker that uses a system preventing the machine from operating unless you provide it with confirmation that you are using the Chosen Tea™, not meet that definition?
Far too long since I’ve read, or even thought of Three Men in a Boat!
I can assure you that my cooking in camp is superior to J’s Irish stew - even before Montmorency made his contribution of the dead water rat. And even Out There, I can make a cup of tea that doesn’t taste like a wet paper bag.
I’ve tried my hand at writing in the ‘humourous travelogue’ genre but alas, I’ve not gotten very good at it.
Just drink more whiskey. At least you’ll think you’re getting funnier 
And take a dog or at least one idiotic or otherwise unsuitable travel companion (see also A Walk in the Woods).
That seems to be the key.
or
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