8 ms·

Rate my App: Tea for iPhone--getting quantitative about tea

108 points by siglesias 16y ago

sidwyn 16y ago
I'm too lazy to watch a 5minute video. Other than that, aesthetically pleasing. Good job!
jkap 16y ago
Aren't you Aaron's brother? I remember him showing me this a couple months ago. It's a really nice looking app, both aesthetically and functionally. If I drank tea I'm sure I'd use it.
- siglesias 16y ago
  Yep.
Swizec 16y ago
This looks like a freaking awesome app and being a tea drinker it really pains me that I can't buy it because Apple doesn't want to take my money. I want this app! I'm assuming it comes with sane defaults, does it also allow tweaking the settings to get the steeping times and such perfectly to taste? What about sharing and cross-comparing these with friends?
- siglesias 16y ago
  Yep, you can tweak the settings pretty much any way you like. One tap sharing on Twitter and Facebook also.
stingraycharles 16y ago
One minor UX note: it wasn't directly obvious to me that clicking the small preview images below "Features" resulted in the preview on the right being updated. Other than that, looks very nice!
DanielBMarkham 16y ago
Best app I've seen in a while on HN -- targeted directly at me, lots of geeky features, very cool interface, the video leverages my enthusiasm for tea into a purchase decision, and easy to buy for my iTouch. Congrats on the great job, siglesias. I'm buying it right now, and I'm looking forward to hearing what kind of market traction you get! Also, at a meta level, at some point I'd like to learn more about how iPhone app developers manage so much functionality for so little real-estate. There was a lot going on in this app for only 6-10 very simple screens. Did you mock it up on paper first? Wire frame it? Use an online tool? Details here would be interesting.
- revorad 16y ago
  This is a really useful looking app for interactive mockups - http://keynotopia.com/ http://keynotopia.com/
  - chrishenn 16y ago
    Currently $80 off at AppSumo: http://appsumo.com/keynotopia-special-promo/ http://appsumo.com/keynotopia-special-promo/ I haven't used it but I like the idea. Being able to create your idea in programs your comfortable with (photoshop) and then actually clicking and feeling the design is a valuable thing.
    - revorad 16y ago
      Oh that's where I found it, but thought the deal was over! Thanks for pointing it out.
- siglesias 16y ago
  Hey, glad you enjoy it! The main inspiration for the interface was believe it or not Apple's Phone. Like having a list of contacts that you could simply tap to call, it made sense for Tea to have a list of teas that you could tap to brew. And like Phone, we use the detail disclosure indicator pattern on each cell to provide more information. The interface kind of grew naturally from that starting point. For sketching I used UIStencil's iPhone stencil kit, and the designer I collaborated with, Mac Tyler, sketched his ideas in Photoshop.
HedgeMage 16y ago
Amazing app -- if I were an iPhone user, I'd buy it. I don't watch videos, so I apologize if this suggestion is already handled, but WRT to the inventory tracker, will it only work if you know how many servings you just bought? I'd love it if my loose tea serving remaining would be estimated by my entering how much (in oz or grams) of tea I just added to the stash, and it estimating servings remaining based on stated servings/weight for that tea, then learn from my actual usage. (As a loose tea lover, I hate trying to guess how much I have of what, and store estimates aren't always accurate.)
revorad 16y ago
Beautiful app and great presentation style inspired by none other than Mr.Jobs. That's "copy what you like" done well.
Alex3917 16y ago
I would replace the inventory feature with an age feature, because I think for most people tracking how many weeks/months ago you bought the tea is more important than how many cups you have left. Also, while I conceptually like the features the UI isn't especially aesthetically pleasing. I would also recommend adding the preferred units to a preferences page and eliminating that from the brew page.
- acgourley 16y ago
  Age does seem more relevant than volume left! Although you have no way of knowing how long it sat in the supply chain before you bought it (unless they time stamped it).
  - samatman 16y ago
    While this is true, decent tea will be well packaged and should stay fresh until one cracks it open. Oolongs and other quality teas that are best fresh tend to be sold with the date of harvest (like Alishan Winter 09 (sigh!)), while pu erh can, and arguably should, be 12 years old when one drinks it. In fact, for serious tea heads, tracking the age of tea might be most useful for aging pu erh disks that aren't quite 'there' yet.
    - Alex3917 16y ago
      I was talking more about green teas, many of which go bad after 6 - 8 weeks.
city41 16y ago
Excellent app. I've always been a "pour boiling water into mug with prepackaged tea bag in it" kind of guy, your app might convince me to discover the finer side of tea. Just a minor issue I noticed: in iPad's Safari the video is stretched (it extends beyond the bounds of the background book) and as it plays your site constantly flickers and reloads itself. screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/EQyRU.png http://i.imgur.com/EQyRU.png
- markkanof 16y ago
  Even if you don't get really into tea you might just try making a cup of tea with hot water instead of boiling water and only let it steep for 2-3 minutes (ie. don't just leave the bag sitting in the cup while you drink). I've found that it can give the tea a better flavor with less bitterness. There certainly is a whole world of loose leaf teas to explore, but at the same time, it's plenty possible to make a really good cup of tea from a standard tea bag.
- mactyler 16y ago
  Hmm, I'll definitely check that out. Thanks!
  - city41 16y ago
    The flickering is greatly reduced on subsequent viewings (even after clearing the cache) and only occurs as the video is starting up now, not a big deal IMO. Not sure why it was so flickery the first time.
    - mactyler 16y ago
      No idea what is going on with the youtube embed. I've used css media queries to use a placeholder image on mobile safari that is a thumbnail you can click and will load the youtube video.
- jseliger 16y ago
  "I've always been a "pour boiling water into mug with prepackaged tea bag in it" kind of guy, your app might convince me to discover the finer side of tea." For more on how / why not to do that, see here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934051 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934051 .
nopal 16y ago
Can you integrate and partner with a internet tea seller? I know nothing about tea, but I know I could appreciate it. If you made it even easier for me to get good tea, I think that'd be a great feature. In addition, your app would know what I'd ordered, and you could leverage that info. Definitely not a MVP feature, but definitely one that I think could be useful and profitable. As it stands, it's a great looking app and I think it's a great example of finding a niche and creating something compelling to serve it. Edit: I just noticed the adagio teas coupon on your site. While this may be a simple affiliate link, maybe you've already begun trying to forge a partnership with them whereby you could offer in-app purchasing of their products (or a selected subset). Hopefully so!
ChaseB 16y ago
Found this on dribbble a few days ago. Congrats on the app launch. Can you ask mactyler if he's interested in doing some design work for an app I'm working on? Chase (at) kegstool (dot) com. Thanks!
mactyler 16y ago
Mac Tyler here, designer of Tea, thanks for all the kind words about the design! I'd be happy to answer questions about the design/process if you have any. I plan on writing some blog posts soon explaining some of the fun stuff like app icon and basic UI. Once again, glad you guys are enjoying it and please help us spread the word all you can!
dhughes 16y ago
What about for Android? Green tea requires cooler water than black is that something a person new to tea will be shown or is all data the user enters via trial and error? If it's pre-determined what about mixing different teas which is a common thing to do if the brew settings per tea type are set can other users submit new mixes 10% green, 90% black and say use X grams and brew for Y minutes? FYI I just posted to Reddit/r/Tea too.
jseliger 16y ago
Will buy it as soon as I get home. I started making / drinking tea thanks largely to this HN article on "A Hacker's Guide to Tea": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934051 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934051 and the (many!) useful comments within. BTW, I've been getting most of that tea from the guy who originally wrote "A Hacker's Guide to Tea:" http://www.chicagoteagarden.com/ http://www.chicagoteagarden.com/ and it's been good.
acgourley 16y ago
I'm square in your demographic, so I'll try to give you some honest feedback. 1) Inventory tracking seems odd to me, unless its primarily to brag to other tea drinkers. I mean I see my tea every day, I know how much I have. 2) I really like the brewing tracking/suggesting. The amount of tea, length of steep, and temperature all make a big difference and it can be hard to remember which caused which flavors. 3) I'm okay with making my tea drinking schedule/habits public, but I'm not sure I really want to push each one out to facebook/twitter. So in conclusion, my main enthusiasm for the app would be my ability to log detailed brewing trials, and to see what others have come up with. I would worry others might be taking loose or incorrect measurements though, so I'd want some assurance any public notes were somewhat carefully done.
- siglesias 16y ago
  Hi! 1) Inventory tracking was a risk we took because you're right, you can just look at your teas. However, there are some really cool features in the pipeline that will take advantage of the inventory tracker better. For example, you might have several teas, but some go stale more quickly than others. Tea can suggest for you which teas to use up more quickly, but only if it has an idea of how much you have left. Etc. 2) Thanks! 3) That feature is totally optional. Let us know if you find it intrusive. The brew suggestions that ship with Tea were very meticulously done by one expert, not an average or random statistics online. Hope you enjoy the app if you decide to use it!
- ascendant 16y ago
  I'd like to comment on the first one. I tend to have a goldfish's memory so the inventory tracker would do very well for me if I was out somewhere and felt like purchasing more to remember how much I have at home.
acgourley 16y ago
This is the kind of app that makes me want to hard mount an ipad in the kitchen.
- anonymousDan 16y ago
  By 'hard mount' I really hope you mean attach it to a wall....
  - ascendant 16y ago
    Flush in the counter! No, I jest.
Jd 16y ago
First, a comment: Friggin' awesome! Second, a list of (hopefully helpful) criticisms: (1) Re: Intro video. Way too long. Don't need to see the face of the founder. How can you use an ordinary hot water heater and discuss water temperature? At least pretend to stick in a thermometer -- or, better, use a Zojirushi or equivalent. (2) Should probably have preset times/temperatures for different tea types that can be edited, to facilitate data entry (maybe you do, but I didn't quite pick up on this in the video). (3) Perhaps I'm the only one, but I find data entry (including tasting notes) to be a major pain on an iPhone. I used to keep my cheese tasting notes on mine but gave up since I hated doing it that way. I suspect that people will not continue using the app if they find the most useful features require significant data entry. (4) Key and very useful feature(brewing timer) is already included as part of the free Teavana app. Also the Teavana app has nice music while you brew. (5) Killer feature would be tea ratings and the ability to share. You might also want to rate them based on vendor. Or, potentially very profitably, allow direct buying with the purchase automatically imported into the app. That's what my app was structured around. To get a more long-term hold you probably need to "go social" at some point. (6) Hardcore tea snobs (this term should probably include myself) frequently brew tea in different pots, vessels. You might consider including this -- and obviously you would use different amounts of tea depending on the vessel. Best of luck! Definitely a huge improvement over what else is out there -- and personally hope it makes it into an app not tied to iOS. About me: I got into tea while working and studying in China and Japan and once built a (skeletal) Rails app for rating tea that I never released. I still think this could be profitable but am now instead n grad school reading about Tea -- and have also identified several favorite vendors such that I feel that I have everything I need at the moment.
- siglesias 16y ago
  Howdy Jd! 1) We might try to figure out a way to shorten the video. So much new stuff to share! 2) All of the presets are editable. 3) I think that 95% of the use cases will eventually be using the timer, which will be preset perfectly for each tea. 4) We respect Teavana, but we're not a fan of their app's design. Maybe that's bias. 5) Agreed. 6) Agreed. We're working on. It was actually an original feature, but a little trickier than one would think. Thanks for your feedback! If you have any more, drop me a line at sam at teaapp. com!
bricestacey 16y ago
On iPhone the iPhone image covers the right side of the text so I can't read the last word of each line.
joeguilmette 16y ago
i have not used to app, but. WOW. i love you. I love tea, i love making it, drinking it, buying it, sharing it. kudos to you.
darragjm 16y ago
Great looking interface! Would like to see an option to sort my brew history by rating though. No sense in searching through mediocre brews right?
samatman 16y ago
Great app! What would push it over the top, for me, would be if you offered a thermometer like this one: http://hmb-tec.de/iPhoneApps/BBQ-Thermometer.html http://hmb-tec.de/iPhoneApps/BBQ-Thermometer.html that plugs into the headphone jack. Ideally yours would be lighter weight and would float on water, but the peripheral exists already. This would add great functionality; it would now become 'perfect tea. anywhere. anytime.' The phone would chime when the water is ready, then simply pour, the phone chimes again, tea. Doesn't matter if you're by a campfire, in an office, in front of a stove; perfect tea. Make it an attractive peripheral that matches the rest of the Apple way and you will sell a lot of these gizmos, at more than $1.99 - 30% profit per gizmo. Perhaps a kickstarter to pay for production, a la the Glif? I'm in for one, possibly two, in advance.
- siglesias 16y ago
  What about a bluetooth thermometer that uses the heat energy from the liquid to keep it charged? Is that even possible? If anyone knows, drop me an email at sam at teaapp. com!
dangrossman 16y ago
Viewing your website at 1024x768 in Chrome, the image of the phone overlaps the text making it partially unreadable.
- siglesias 16y ago
  Thanks. Will address.
quinndupont 16y ago
Looks amazing, but what about coffee? I'd buy both, even if all you changed were the name and references from tea to coffee.
amm3g 16y ago
about as exciting as tea can get.
gcb 16y ago
can't say about the app. but it wans't fun to see all the images slowly apearing top-down at your site...
mactyler 16y ago
Thanks for all the design feedback everyone! Fixed some of the site bugs you guys had mentioned. I'll probably post the blog entries about some of the design in a week or so. Follow me on twitter for those updates or if you have any other questions you want to ask me directly :) http://twitter.com/mactyler http://twitter.com/mactyler
jrockway 16y ago
This is cool, but the hard part is not figuring out what temperature to brew your tea at, but rather convincing some sort of device to do that for you. I know there are fully-automatic espresso machines where you can set the temperature, pressure, brew volume, grind size, etc. Is there anything like that for tea?
- restiffbard 16y ago
  Adagio sells an electric kettle with various settings for temperature. One sec while I find the link... http://bit.ly/hEO3qo http://bit.ly/hEO3qo There ya go. Sure there are others but that's the first one I thought of.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    The next step is to dispense the tea leaves and filter them out after a set period of time :)
    - dhugiaskmak 16y ago
      Like this? http://www.adagio.com/teaware/triniTEA.html http://www.adagio.com/teaware/triniTEA.html There are a few companies that make similar brewers.
      - jrockway 16y ago
        Yes, very cool. It seems like it only has two temperature settings, but it's very close to the right idea. I guess coffee geeks are willing to shell out $3000 for fancy machines, while tea geeks are not :)
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
raid5 16y ago
I've been watching the design progress of this on Forrst, great work!
kore 16y ago
Checked out the video, and it seems like a well designed app serving a niche audience. If you find some success with it, might I suggest skinning the app to serve other niches that share similar needs? I can think of a couple just off the top of my head. You might need to make a few tweaks, but the majority of the feature set could be reused, and with the feedback you get from this app you might find ways to refine the design even further.
edd 16y ago
Website doesnt seem to fit on an iPad sized screen, I can briefly read the content but then the iPhone comes and overlays the right hand size. Looks slick other than that though.
omnivore 16y ago
Fabulous, as a tea drinker to the nth degree, I'm always looking for dorky tea apps and things.

108 points by siglesias 16y ago

I'm too lazy to watch a 5minute video. Other than that, aesthetically pleasing. Good job!

jkap 16y ago

Aren't you Aaron's brother? I remember him showing me this a couple months ago. It's a really nice looking app, both aesthetically and functionally. If I drank tea I'm sure I'd use it.

siglesias 16y ago
Yep.

Swizec 16y ago

This looks like a freaking awesome app and being a tea drinker it really pains me that I can't buy it because Apple doesn't want to take my money. I want this app! I'm assuming it comes with sane defaults, does it also allow tweaking the settings to get the steeping times and such perfectly to taste? What about sharing and cross-comparing these with friends?

siglesias 16y ago
Yep, you can tweak the settings pretty much any way you like. One tap sharing on Twitter and Facebook also.

stingraycharles 16y ago

One minor UX note: it wasn't directly obvious to me that clicking the small preview images below "Features" resulted in the preview on the right being updated. Other than that, looks very nice!

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

Best app I've seen in a while on HN -- targeted directly at me, lots of geeky features, very cool interface, the video leverages my enthusiasm for tea into a purchase decision, and easy to buy for my iTouch. Congrats on the great job, siglesias. I'm buying it right now, and I'm looking forward to hearing what kind of market traction you get! Also, at a meta level, at some point I'd like to learn more about how iPhone app developers manage so much functionality for so little real-estate. There was a lot going on in this app for only 6-10 very simple screens. Did you mock it up on paper first? Wire frame it? Use an online tool? Details here would be interesting.

revorad 16y ago
This is a really useful looking app for interactive mockups - http://keynotopia.com/ http://keynotopia.com/
- chrishenn 16y ago
  Currently $80 off at AppSumo: http://appsumo.com/keynotopia-special-promo/ http://appsumo.com/keynotopia-special-promo/ I haven't used it but I like the idea. Being able to create your idea in programs your comfortable with (photoshop) and then actually clicking and feeling the design is a valuable thing.
  - revorad 16y ago
    Oh that's where I found it, but thought the deal was over! Thanks for pointing it out.
siglesias 16y ago
Hey, glad you enjoy it! The main inspiration for the interface was believe it or not Apple's Phone. Like having a list of contacts that you could simply tap to call, it made sense for Tea to have a list of teas that you could tap to brew. And like Phone, we use the detail disclosure indicator pattern on each cell to provide more information. The interface kind of grew naturally from that starting point. For sketching I used UIStencil's iPhone stencil kit, and the designer I collaborated with, Mac Tyler, sketched his ideas in Photoshop.

HedgeMage 16y ago

Amazing app -- if I were an iPhone user, I'd buy it. I don't watch videos, so I apologize if this suggestion is already handled, but WRT to the inventory tracker, will it only work if you know how many servings you just bought? I'd love it if my loose tea serving remaining would be estimated by my entering how much (in oz or grams) of tea I just added to the stash, and it estimating servings remaining based on stated servings/weight for that tea, then learn from my actual usage. (As a loose tea lover, I hate trying to guess how much I have of what, and store estimates aren't always accurate.)

revorad 16y ago

Beautiful app and great presentation style inspired by none other than Mr.Jobs. That's "copy what you like" done well.

Alex3917 16y ago

I would replace the inventory feature with an age feature, because I think for most people tracking how many weeks/months ago you bought the tea is more important than how many cups you have left. Also, while I conceptually like the features the UI isn't especially aesthetically pleasing. I would also recommend adding the preferred units to a preferences page and eliminating that from the brew page.

acgourley 16y ago
Age does seem more relevant than volume left! Although you have no way of knowing how long it sat in the supply chain before you bought it (unless they time stamped it).
- samatman 16y ago
  While this is true, decent tea will be well packaged and should stay fresh until one cracks it open. Oolongs and other quality teas that are best fresh tend to be sold with the date of harvest (like Alishan Winter 09 (sigh!)), while pu erh can, and arguably should, be 12 years old when one drinks it. In fact, for serious tea heads, tracking the age of tea might be most useful for aging pu erh disks that aren't quite 'there' yet.
  - Alex3917 16y ago
    I was talking more about green teas, many of which go bad after 6 - 8 weeks.

city41 16y ago

Excellent app. I've always been a "pour boiling water into mug with prepackaged tea bag in it" kind of guy, your app might convince me to discover the finer side of tea. Just a minor issue I noticed: in iPad's Safari the video is stretched (it extends beyond the bounds of the background book) and as it plays your site constantly flickers and reloads itself. screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/EQyRU.png http://i.imgur.com/EQyRU.png

markkanof 16y ago
Even if you don't get really into tea you might just try making a cup of tea with hot water instead of boiling water and only let it steep for 2-3 minutes (ie. don't just leave the bag sitting in the cup while you drink). I've found that it can give the tea a better flavor with less bitterness. There certainly is a whole world of loose leaf teas to explore, but at the same time, it's plenty possible to make a really good cup of tea from a standard tea bag.
mactyler 16y ago
Hmm, I'll definitely check that out. Thanks!
- city41 16y ago
  The flickering is greatly reduced on subsequent viewings (even after clearing the cache) and only occurs as the video is starting up now, not a big deal IMO. Not sure why it was so flickery the first time.
  - mactyler 16y ago
    No idea what is going on with the youtube embed. I've used css media queries to use a placeholder image on mobile safari that is a thumbnail you can click and will load the youtube video.
jseliger 16y ago
"I've always been a "pour boiling water into mug with prepackaged tea bag in it" kind of guy, your app might convince me to discover the finer side of tea." For more on how / why not to do that, see here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934051 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934051 .

nopal 16y ago

Can you integrate and partner with a internet tea seller? I know nothing about tea, but I know I could appreciate it. If you made it even easier for me to get good tea, I think that'd be a great feature. In addition, your app would know what I'd ordered, and you could leverage that info. Definitely not a MVP feature, but definitely one that I think could be useful and profitable. As it stands, it's a great looking app and I think it's a great example of finding a niche and creating something compelling to serve it. Edit: I just noticed the adagio teas coupon on your site. While this may be a simple affiliate link, maybe you've already begun trying to forge a partnership with them whereby you could offer in-app purchasing of their products (or a selected subset). Hopefully so!

ChaseB 16y ago

Found this on dribbble a few days ago. Congrats on the app launch. Can you ask mactyler if he's interested in doing some design work for an app I'm working on? Chase (at) kegstool (dot) com. Thanks!

mactyler 16y ago

Mac Tyler here, designer of Tea, thanks for all the kind words about the design! I'd be happy to answer questions about the design/process if you have any. I plan on writing some blog posts soon explaining some of the fun stuff like app icon and basic UI. Once again, glad you guys are enjoying it and please help us spread the word all you can!

dhughes 16y ago

What about for Android? Green tea requires cooler water than black is that something a person new to tea will be shown or is all data the user enters via trial and error? If it's pre-determined what about mixing different teas which is a common thing to do if the brew settings per tea type are set can other users submit new mixes 10% green, 90% black and say use X grams and brew for Y minutes? FYI I just posted to Reddit/r/Tea too.

jseliger 16y ago

Will buy it as soon as I get home. I started making / drinking tea thanks largely to this HN article on "A Hacker's Guide to Tea": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934051 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934051 and the (many!) useful comments within. BTW, I've been getting most of that tea from the guy who originally wrote "A Hacker's Guide to Tea:" http://www.chicagoteagarden.com/ http://www.chicagoteagarden.com/ and it's been good.

acgourley 16y ago

I'm square in your demographic, so I'll try to give you some honest feedback. 1) Inventory tracking seems odd to me, unless its primarily to brag to other tea drinkers. I mean I see my tea every day, I know how much I have. 2) I really like the brewing tracking/suggesting. The amount of tea, length of steep, and temperature all make a big difference and it can be hard to remember which caused which flavors. 3) I'm okay with making my tea drinking schedule/habits public, but I'm not sure I really want to push each one out to facebook/twitter. So in conclusion, my main enthusiasm for the app would be my ability to log detailed brewing trials, and to see what others have come up with. I would worry others might be taking loose or incorrect measurements though, so I'd want some assurance any public notes were somewhat carefully done.

siglesias 16y ago
Hi! 1) Inventory tracking was a risk we took because you're right, you can just look at your teas. However, there are some really cool features in the pipeline that will take advantage of the inventory tracker better. For example, you might have several teas, but some go stale more quickly than others. Tea can suggest for you which teas to use up more quickly, but only if it has an idea of how much you have left. Etc. 2) Thanks! 3) That feature is totally optional. Let us know if you find it intrusive. The brew suggestions that ship with Tea were very meticulously done by one expert, not an average or random statistics online. Hope you enjoy the app if you decide to use it!
ascendant 16y ago
I'd like to comment on the first one. I tend to have a goldfish's memory so the inventory tracker would do very well for me if I was out somewhere and felt like purchasing more to remember how much I have at home.

acgourley 16y ago

This is the kind of app that makes me want to hard mount an ipad in the kitchen.

anonymousDan 16y ago
By 'hard mount' I really hope you mean attach it to a wall....
- ascendant 16y ago
  Flush in the counter! No, I jest.

Jd 16y ago

First, a comment: Friggin' awesome! Second, a list of (hopefully helpful) criticisms: (1) Re: Intro video. Way too long. Don't need to see the face of the founder. How can you use an ordinary hot water heater and discuss water temperature? At least pretend to stick in a thermometer -- or, better, use a Zojirushi or equivalent. (2) Should probably have preset times/temperatures for different tea types that can be edited, to facilitate data entry (maybe you do, but I didn't quite pick up on this in the video). (3) Perhaps I'm the only one, but I find data entry (including tasting notes) to be a major pain on an iPhone. I used to keep my cheese tasting notes on mine but gave up since I hated doing it that way. I suspect that people will not continue using the app if they find the most useful features require significant data entry. (4) Key and very useful feature(brewing timer) is already included as part of the free Teavana app. Also the Teavana app has nice music while you brew. (5) Killer feature would be tea ratings and the ability to share. You might also want to rate them based on vendor. Or, potentially very profitably, allow direct buying with the purchase automatically imported into the app. That's what my app was structured around. To get a more long-term hold you probably need to "go social" at some point. (6) Hardcore tea snobs (this term should probably include myself) frequently brew tea in different pots, vessels. You might consider including this -- and obviously you would use different amounts of tea depending on the vessel. Best of luck! Definitely a huge improvement over what else is out there -- and personally hope it makes it into an app not tied to iOS. About me: I got into tea while working and studying in China and Japan and once built a (skeletal) Rails app for rating tea that I never released. I still think this could be profitable but am now instead n grad school reading about Tea -- and have also identified several favorite vendors such that I feel that I have everything I need at the moment.

siglesias 16y ago
Howdy Jd! 1) We might try to figure out a way to shorten the video. So much new stuff to share! 2) All of the presets are editable. 3) I think that 95% of the use cases will eventually be using the timer, which will be preset perfectly for each tea. 4) We respect Teavana, but we're not a fan of their app's design. Maybe that's bias. 5) Agreed. 6) Agreed. We're working on. It was actually an original feature, but a little trickier than one would think. Thanks for your feedback! If you have any more, drop me a line at sam at teaapp. com!

bricestacey 16y ago

On iPhone the iPhone image covers the right side of the text so I can't read the last word of each line.

joeguilmette 16y ago

i have not used to app, but. WOW. i love you. I love tea, i love making it, drinking it, buying it, sharing it. kudos to you.

darragjm 16y ago

Great looking interface! Would like to see an option to sort my brew history by rating though. No sense in searching through mediocre brews right?

samatman 16y ago

Great app! What would push it over the top, for me, would be if you offered a thermometer like this one: http://hmb-tec.de/iPhoneApps/BBQ-Thermometer.html http://hmb-tec.de/iPhoneApps/BBQ-Thermometer.html that plugs into the headphone jack. Ideally yours would be lighter weight and would float on water, but the peripheral exists already. This would add great functionality; it would now become 'perfect tea. anywhere. anytime.' The phone would chime when the water is ready, then simply pour, the phone chimes again, tea. Doesn't matter if you're by a campfire, in an office, in front of a stove; perfect tea. Make it an attractive peripheral that matches the rest of the Apple way and you will sell a lot of these gizmos, at more than $1.99 - 30% profit per gizmo. Perhaps a kickstarter to pay for production, a la the Glif? I'm in for one, possibly two, in advance.

siglesias 16y ago
What about a bluetooth thermometer that uses the heat energy from the liquid to keep it charged? Is that even possible? If anyone knows, drop me an email at sam at teaapp. com!

dangrossman 16y ago

Viewing your website at 1024x768 in Chrome, the image of the phone overlaps the text making it partially unreadable.

siglesias 16y ago
Thanks. Will address.

quinndupont 16y ago

Looks amazing, but what about coffee? I'd buy both, even if all you changed were the name and references from tea to coffee.

amm3g 16y ago

about as exciting as tea can get.

gcb 16y ago

can't say about the app. but it wans't fun to see all the images slowly apearing top-down at your site...

mactyler 16y ago

Thanks for all the design feedback everyone! Fixed some of the site bugs you guys had mentioned. I'll probably post the blog entries about some of the design in a week or so. Follow me on twitter for those updates or if you have any other questions you want to ask me directly :) http://twitter.com/mactyler http://twitter.com/mactyler

jrockway 16y ago

This is cool, but the hard part is not figuring out what temperature to brew your tea at, but rather convincing some sort of device to do that for you. I know there are fully-automatic espresso machines where you can set the temperature, pressure, brew volume, grind size, etc. Is there anything like that for tea?

restiffbard 16y ago
Adagio sells an electric kettle with various settings for temperature. One sec while I find the link... http://bit.ly/hEO3qo http://bit.ly/hEO3qo There ya go. Sure there are others but that's the first one I thought of.
- jrockway 16y ago
  The next step is to dispense the tea leaves and filter them out after a set period of time :)
  - dhugiaskmak 16y ago
    Like this? http://www.adagio.com/teaware/triniTEA.html http://www.adagio.com/teaware/triniTEA.html There are a few companies that make similar brewers.
    - jrockway 16y ago
      Yes, very cool. It seems like it only has two temperature settings, but it's very close to the right idea. I guess coffee geeks are willing to shell out $3000 for fancy machines, while tea geeks are not :)

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raid5 16y ago

I've been watching the design progress of this on Forrst, great work!

kore 16y ago

Checked out the video, and it seems like a well designed app serving a niche audience. If you find some success with it, might I suggest skinning the app to serve other niches that share similar needs? I can think of a couple just off the top of my head. You might need to make a few tweaks, but the majority of the feature set could be reused, and with the feedback you get from this app you might find ways to refine the design even further.

edd 16y ago

Website doesnt seem to fit on an iPad sized screen, I can briefly read the content but then the iPhone comes and overlays the right hand size. Looks slick other than that though.

omnivore 16y ago

Fabulous, as a tea drinker to the nth degree, I'm always looking for dorky tea apps and things.