Side by Side Comparison of: Hamilton Beach vs Mr. Coffee

Bought this iced coffee/tea maker for my daughter and granddaughter so they could have free ice coffees without paying $ 5.00 to $ 10.00 for one at the local places that you buy them at and they love it. They are over here all the time making their drinks and buying the stuff to make the iced coffees with and they love the convience of coming to my house and being able to make them before they go to work. Now they're going to try and make iced tea the next time they come over and make themselves drinks.

This machine is wonderful!!! My husband and I love iced coffee and teas in the summer, but they get expensive. I have already covered what coffees I would have bought, and am saving a lot by just keeping ice on hand and a few flavored syrups. I highly recommend this machine to anyone who loves coffee and tea but likes them iced!

Easy to use. Brews tea perfectly. The pitcher is sturdy & the design is large but space efficient.

This is one the best products for brewing iced tea and coffee. It is fast and the tea and coffee tastes great!! Saves me a great deal of money...Love this product...

I love this product. I use nearly daily for making iced coffee. I use to have the Mr. Coffee iced coffee maker, and this is one is better hands down. What I love is the ease of making the ice tea. It's not a chore at all. The other thing it brews cold. No more steam burns like I use to get from Mr. Coffee. I don't know why it took me so long to find this. I had to wait until Mr. Coffee broke. I would never go back. This is the best. Oh and did I tell you about how good the coffee taste? My husband didn't drink coffee at all till now. Now he wants iced coffee in his thermos every morning. In both of them. You don't have to buy any expensive coffee's either. I just buy flavored Folgers I buy on this website. We like chocolate and caramel and there you go. No stops for an expensive iced coffee.

I love this for "Iced" Coffee! After using my mom's, I had to get one for myself!I make mine a little differently than package directions. I don't add ice to the pitcher. I use about 3/4 cup of grounds (this is less than recommended in directions). I brew the coffee once through, refill the water part, and use the same coffee grounds again! It fills the pitcher about 2/3 full, so I have more coffee available throughout the week! Each morning, I pour the coffee into a cup and then fill with ice. The coffee is perfect and not too strong. Plus, I like that I can go longer without having to brew again!

Recipe for perfect Southern sweet tea!1. Fill pitcher to the top of the word "Water", not the water line, and pour into tea maker2. Place 3 family size "Luzianne" iced tea bags into the brewing cup and place in maker, closing lid3. Turn brew knob to strong and begin brewing4. After brewing completes, pour 1.5 cups of sugar into the still warm tea. Stir until completely dissolved.5. Add ice until tea level is about at the 2 QT line. Stir until ice is mostly dissolved.6. Add cold water until tea reaches the 3 QT line. Stir for additional 15-30 seconds to ensure consistency.Voila! Instantly ready to drink, perfect Southern sweet tea! Please upvote this if you find it helpful.

I have been making iced tea the old school way by boiling water, added my tea bags, steeping for 6-7 minutes, then adding to a container of cold water.....for years I've done it that way. Until a friend of mine told me there are iced tea makers out there!! WHAT! I ended up picking this one because of other reviews saying how much they like it and how well this one pours without spilling.WELL THIS IS AMAZING!I can just throw in my tea bags, put some water in it, turn it on, and I can walk away from this thing and know I can come back in 5-10 minutes and I will have a pitcher of tea ready to go into the fridge! I LOVE how it auto-shuts off when it's done too! I don't have to worry about remembering to turn it off!One thing I will add in my review that I wished I had read in others -- the way this iced tea maker wants you to make tea is filling the pitcher up with ICE and having the tea brew on top of it. I don't have a fridge that makes ice so I make ice the old school way, and I don't have enough ice trays to fill up this pitcher!INSTEAD, I just fill between the 2-3 quart line with COLD WATER (for the full 3 quarts of tea) and let it brew on top of that (I use a 1 gallon tea bag) and then put it in the fridge. No complaints from my family on taste, so if you don't want to make ice, or don't have a lot of ice on hand -- play around with the water levels and you will find the right dilute amount that works instead of ice.I would recommend this for sure!!!

I can't even write a full review of how much i love this product because I love it too much to put into words. I LOVE iced tea, drink it everywhere I go and this machine made some of the best tea I've had. You can use any kind of bag in the tea and if you have an infuser, you can toss that in with different loose tea (I use lavender). It does take a TON of ice but you have the option of just using water if you run out of ice. It makes strong or light tea, which is great as well since I like my tea lighter in flavor. It makes tea in a few minutes and is easy to clean and reuse immediately.

My husband loves tea. I got him this to replace the one that was still working but just super old. We couldn't get the tea stains off the old pitcher and there was mold in the top where the tea bags go. My husband didn't let it dry before packing it when we moved. When his new one arrived in the mail, I tucked it under his blanket while he was working and he was super excited when he came home. It works well and he uses it several times per week. Plus, I love the teal accents, even more so than the blue, and I am happy that the stained pitcher is a thing of the past. Now I just hope he stays on top of cleaning the pitcher so we can hopefully avoid the stains altogether.

I have had no trouble with this iced tea maker! No leaking or anything. I've made about 5 batches of tea so far.It requires ice, so get ice trays in your amazon order if you need them. I purchased a second ice tray and an ice bucket for the freezer since my freezer doesn't make ice. I use about 4 trays of ice for a 3 quart batch of tea.My only complaint is I wish the lid swiveled, so it would be able to close and keep the tea fresh and any fridge odors out.Update: Had this for a year, and I still love it! Still no leaking or any trouble. I make 3 quarts approximately once a week.

I bought one of these at a Wal-Mart on clearance for $10.00 about 7 or 8 years ago and being from the South, hey we like our sweet tea. Mine was this exact same shape but closer to the teal color. I figure I got my money's worth out of it at 10 bucks. Not sure why now the price is nearly triple that, but I can say it makes the best tea. I used to just use my coffee maker but I don't use coffee makers with a carafe anymore and frankly don't like the flavor of coffee in my tea. But I have loved mine until I noticed it is no longer using all the water in the reservoir and rather than wait until it stops all together I purchased this one. I used it today for the first time and it still makes my tea just the way I like it. I get a lot of compliments on my sweet tea even from people that claim they don't usually drink sweet tea, so I do give credit to my sweet tea maker. I can use two family size tea bags and just under an inch of sugar in the pitcher and it comes out perfect every time. I hope this one holds up as I saw reviews about the teal colored one that is a little square shaped say it leaked right away or after 1 or 2 uses. If this one does that I will be very upset. But my first one last awhile so I am hoping this one will to. I would recommend it.

I use 5 teabags of Choice organic Classic Black tea [taken out of the bags and put into a coffee filter. I also use filtered water, as it doesn't cloud up the tea the second day. Two packets of powdered Stevia sweetens it nicely. Just right for 2-3 people. The only negative is, watch the process as you'll need to turn it off & unplug it as soon as it stops. Carefully get the top components off the bottom portion. The tea holder portion needs to cool off at the top before you pour the tea out. My first unit developed stress cracks at the top, possibly because of the hot top portion experiencing the cold of the tea being pored out into another container to store. Mine has lasted about a year and I've ordered another one.

Makes a good pot of tes.

Got this for my dad and so far he really likes it. Only con is that it's tough to make smaller amounts of coffee. So he makes a full pot and most of it gets thrown out. Wish it gave you instructions for making 1 serving. But it works well and he seems to really like it and uses it regularly.

there is a learning curve to this..you have to experiment with how much coffee grounds you use, etc. I do like it, good value for the money. I do not brew over ice as the directions say. I brew it directly into the pot and then put it in the fridge. In the morning, I add ice to a cup and pour the coffee over the ice.

YAY! Finally an iced tea maker that doesn't leak, spill, or rely on a terribly thin glass pitcher that breaks easily. The top-down fill approach is sheer genius - its simple, easy to work, and utterly reliable. The pitcher has a very stable base, and its made of a heavy clear plastic that is very durable. The only reason I don't give it 5 stars is that the unit doesn't have an automatic shutoff, but in practice that's a small nit. We are very pleased with this product.

I have owned Mr. Coffe iced teat makers in the past and I was looking to buy another. However, I found that there two qt model had been discontinued and I wouldn't give two cents for the 3 qt model that I purchased over a year ago and refuse to use anymore. A great example of how to screw up a good thing. Since I could no longer get the desired maker I decided to try the this Hamilton Beach product. I have been pleasantly surprised. I intend to use exclusively for tea and it does a great job. I will have to experiment with quantity of tea, ice and sweetener to get the tea exactly how I prefer it, but that is just trial and error. I have used it only twice, so I cannot comment on its reliability or durability. But, for tea making I would definitely recommend it. Price is right and function is user friendly, though I would like more control over how long the tea steeps before passing into the ice in the pitcher.

Very good value. It is a bit awkward to use. The pitcher has to be placed perfectly but works fine when it is.. The strength dial kind of floats around so you need to check every time you start a brew that it hasn't wandered. The strength valve in the basket is very delicate and sticks out from it and I'm afraid it will get broken from normal use and cleaning. When you use tea bags, there is no provision for placement of tags and strings. The basket is so big that I have to stack them in a balanced pile under the water spigot. Once you adjust to its small idiosyncrasies you'll have a fine brewed pitcher of iced tea. It's not very expensive and does an excellent job. I like it because it isn't over engineered or overpriced. Four stars for a great value

Makes very good tea, kind of difficult to use (measurement, removing the basket), and it is kind of messy. Drips, drops, basket is messy, and tea stains (no fault of Mr. Coffee, I know). I don't hate it, but if I can cajole my husband into making my tea, that is ideal. I don't know of a better one, but this is the first one I have tried.

I bought this for full price and use it to make a daily supply of tea for my kombucha, and so far I'm pleased with how well it works. It takes a little longer to brew than I expected, but it's not a major issue, just a small inconvenience. It makes wonderful tea, and I'm glad I can adjust the strength of the tea, so I'm still in the process of trying it different ways to see what works best.

Ok. First thing I have to say is that it makes great tea. But, i had one question and I called Mr. Coffee for the answer. My question was...does the reservoir hold 3 quarts of water? I wanted to brew 3 quarts of tea without the ice and then put the pitcher in the fridge for cooling. This way i can make more tea and it wont get watered down with ice as it melts. The answer i got was YES the reservoir itself hold 3 quarts of water. Well, it does not. I tried and it soon began to leak all over the place. So, no need to try it yourself. I must admit i should have read the instructions first but thought that the answer I got from the company was right. That being said...for 20 bucks you cannot beat it. It makes better tea than my old pot on the stovetop.. It is a little slow but its faster than the way I was making tea. Be sure to remove the basket and throw away the tea bags after brewing and before you remove the pitcher or it will continue to drip after the brew button is off. With a little tweeking and learning my own craft it will be fine. It also comes with some recipes and directions that look quite useful(wish I would have used them) i am enjoying my first glass right now! Cheers!

Brewing tea in the Mr. Coffee TM70 3 quart Iced Tea Maker is certainly easier and faster than doing it on the stove, but it is not without a few minor issues. Please keep in mind that these opinions are based on my experiences at my household, though I think we are typical enough.The bad:1) It is not guaranteed that all the tea will go directly into the pitcher. You must be very careful to align the two components perfectly or you could have a mess on the counter. As easy as this sounds, I have done it wrong several times already. You only have to mess this up a tiny bit to have a problem. It hasn't been a disaster or anything, just a slight nuisance, but I say it couldn't have cost that much to have made the two components with a more positive link-up system. Maybe make them "snap" or "click" into place or something. Or perhaps just add a downward lip on the brewer that overlaps into the pitcher spout. It isn't rocket science, Mr. Coffee. Please remember this when you do an upgrade.2) You can't make sweet tea straight from the appliance - at least not "Southern" sweet tea. After reading the manual, I understood this to be okay, but when I dumped in sugar to my family's ages-old recipe' it just turned into a blanket of sludge and the tea came out almost clear. If you want "real" sweet tea you will just have to stir it in at the end.3) It takes up precious counter space. It isn't fun at all washing, drying and hiding it all the time. So if you rarely ever make tea, a stove pot can actually be more practical, unless you have a couple of square feet of counter space needing a full time appliance. I don't think you could beat it for households that really go through some tea though. Besides, tea is a staple worth sacrificing for in my house.4) NEWSFLASH - 3 quarts is not a gallon! EVERYTHING comes in gallon quantities, so why not Mr. Coffee iced tea? You will just have to learn how to make it strong and top it off to the gallon mark with cool water. I did get the hang of this pretty quickly.Now here are some good points I discovered:1) The TM70 is quick, safe and easy compared to boiling water in pots. It only takes about 10 minutes to have fresh tea every time and you don't have to watch it or juggle hot, sloshing water. Basically, you just pour cool water into the appliance, add tea, align the pitcher, press the button, and walk away - for hours if you need to. It will be okay. It turns itself off automatically. I can't tell you how many times a pot of water has boiled over on our stove. Several times we have forgotten and had pots boil themselves dry and nearly melt! That is no fun at all. The TM70 is GREAT in this regard.2) The brewing pitcher has a pointy spout and is perfect for filling gallon milk jugs without a mess. Now we have a never-ending supply of clean, fresh, disposable tea containers. When one jug starts to look slightly stained we just toss it and grab another, way before the tea starts tasting funny. We have both sweet and un-sweet tea drinkers in our family and we just use the Mr. Coffee pitcher for brewing and pouring into the respective containers.3) Use tea bags or freshly ground with a coffee filter. We do like the option of using loose, "gourmet" ground tea and we do plan to give this a try very soon.4) Price! At a mere $28 on Amazon, this a very inexpensive kitchen appliance and there is really nothing serious to complain about. Keep the packaging and if you don't like it give it to a friend or relative as a gift.5) Though I didn't see it mentioned in the product description when I bought it, according to the manual you can use just cool water in the pitcher instead of ice as a temperature buffer when brewing tea. (I assume either is used to rapidly cool the piping hot tea as soon as it lands in the pitcher for several good reasons.) This means you can plan for a warmer blend in the pitcher if you need to stir in sugar. The ice is just for instant "iced" tea. All in all, the good does out-weigh the bad. We are enjoying out Mr. Coffee Tea Maker and do recommend it. It is best for large families that go through lots of tea, like ours!

My old Mr. Coffee finally bit the dust after 25 years of service...and even then it didn't die the plastic on/off button just broke off but I was still using it by playing with the controls...but I finally decided to get a new one. So far this one works great. I was a bit worried since they changed the way you brew the tea, my old one had a open/close so I could close the tea from coming out and let it brew longer to make it stronger. This one has a weak/strong setting which really seems to work but I guess I felt I had more control over the older one??? (I drive a shift stick so I do like having control over my machines). The one thing I don't like is the new pitcher. It is BIG and Heavy (and the handle is very thick). So it takes up lots of space in the refrigerator and while I can handle it with one hand (one hand opening the refrigerator and the other to lift and put the pitcher back in) my sister who doesn't lift weights (and has small hands...size small in gloves) can not! So something to consider if you have arthritis, small hands or do not have good upper body strength. Because of the size of the pitcher I will be looking for something with a smaller footprint to transfer the tea.

I've used it for tea and I just don't get alot of tea in there. Enough for a cup or two..

love iced coffee and this is saving me tons of money making it at home just wish it would make more. Have had it for a little over a year and i used it maybe twice a week the plastic container has stress cracks and now the machine doesn't work at all. very disappointed.

Makes tea very well the only thing that pitcher cracked but still works

It's ok. Not as what I expected it to be like. It's not made well, but that being said ... It does do what it's made out to do. Just can be odd at times with turning on and staying on.

We have had this for five years and use it nearly daily. It makes good tea, relatively easily.HOWEVER, the pitcher is misdesigned. Its elliptical shape plus handle that extends well to the rear mean that the leverage on your hand is huge. It's hard to hold a full pitcher, even for an adult with normal strength. It manages to be bigger than a milk jug, hold less, and be harder to handle.(Our prep: ten bags of Tetley decaf. Fill pitcher with filtered water. Pour into reservoir until you almost reach reach the white tab. Brew at max strength. Refrigerate.)

The product works fine, although if you like your tea on the stronger side, this may not be the best choice for you. I prefer strong iced tea, so after using it a couple of times, I've gone back to the pot on the stove method. Even when selecting the highest setting, the tea is rather weak.

We bought one of these just before the summer, however the power button shorted out. Since we've been using this model since the mideighties. We'll give it one more try. If this one shorts out, we're done with Mr. Coffee products.

love ice tea - and this makes restaurant quality by the batch - ICE will stay ICE in fridge for a day and a half after making the tea. Also, putting in lemons and other berries in the brewing area - gives this tea remarkable flavor GOOD DEAL......HOWEVER, this product is messy - does leak when brewing and always need to get a washcloth afterwards on the counter

This does a fine job of making tea, but the materials from which it is made are inferior. They work, but they stain terribly, and even the dishwasher can't remove the stains from the pitcher and the the part in which you put the tea. Also, the design of the pitcher is such that it is very difficult to balance; I have to use two hands. I talked with Mr. Coffee company, and suggested that they could use plastics that don't stain, and perhaps redesign the shape of the pitcher. They seemed totally unconcerned. And lastly, the picture lies. Using their measurements (which are hard to read, since they are the same color as the pitcher), it only makes enough to fill the pitcher about halfway.

Liked the older version better. I could control the strength of the tea I brewed much better with the older version. This version is bigger and takes up more space for no benefit. It makes the tea okay and the price is okay.4/10/15 Update-maker no longer works, have to press start 3-4 times to complete one brew. Have replaced it with a coffee maker as this is the only iced tea maker I could find. Not who any money or time.

I bought this product for of course making iced coffee. The big base on the pitcher is not space efficient for a smaller fridge. Within a month of having it, I noticed hair line cracks forming and the plastic started to get cloudy from using the sponge on it. One day, after having it for a few months, I go to it, and there is a crack in the plastic that goes all the way through down to the bottom. I even checked the site and even Amazon if they just sold the pitcher, but it looks like that and the unit itself they do not sell separately. I would rather not spend almost $40 for a product I only got for $35 at best.

This unit works, but wish the 'drip rate' and 'tea strength' were designed in a different way ... there's no way to 'steep' for stronger tea ... and I like my tea a bit stronger ...

I really wanted to like this...makes ice tea in minutes! Unfortunately, the tea it makes has a plastic after taste that I just can't shake. It's going back in the box & I am going back to brewing the old fashioned way.

Received this January 9th. It quit working on February 1st. Pitiful. It did great for making tea 2-3 times per week. But that is only 3 weeks. So maybe 9 total brews from this thing, and it is dead. What a waste of $28.

I got this today and have used it already. We are big ice tea drinkers in my household and in the past I used a coffee maker to make brewed iced tea. To my disappointment, this item did not live up to my expectations. While this is labeled as a three-quart item, this is actually only after one adds ice to the 1-quart that is brewed by the machine. Even on the "strong" brew setting, the tea is somewhat weak even though I used the same amount of tea that I used in a coffee maker for years, so adding ice to the hot tea would have made it very diluted. The brewing "on" button goes off before all the water has gone through the drip process and because the lid is on the pitcher, one can't see if the water has stopped dripping or not, which means a potential mess if you pull the pitcher away from the spout too soon. The water fills up in the brew basket when the setting is "strong", and it takes a while to drip through after the tea maker turns itself off. Then when I was done (after cycling through twice in order to get 2 quarts of tea), I found that the loose tea I had used to make my iced tea was stuck in the grooves of the brew basket which meant a mess in my sink when rinsing and having to fish out a piece of tea stuck in the drip hole. I might try using a coffee filter next time. So all in all, not what I was expecting.

The second time I used this a small piece of plastic came out from a hole in the bottom which caused overheating and it stopped working. As it could go in two different ways, it could have been ruined right from the start. I guessed the right way to reinstall the piece and it has worked ok so far for the last 8 times used. I would recommend to stay away from this defectively designed appliance, but there really is not a suitable replacement at this time. If and when a company comes out with a better design I would go with that one. Since I have fixed it, it actually does make a good jug of tea if you use 12 tea bags and I use red rose tea.

This design (new?) was OK at best. I've purchased 2 other Mr. Coffee Tea Makers and they both make sense in design and have lasted a long time (still have both of them!). This version was just annoying and lasted less than a year.The main annoyance is the seemingly never-ending drip. I felt like the brewing was done, but the drip may still go on forever it seems. The pitcher shape is wider than my other 2 which makes it harder to fit in the fridge.The only thing I liked was the tea bag reservoir/holder was attached instead of being a separate piece like on one of my other Mr. Coffee Tea Makers.Ultimately, it stopped working properly after about 9 months and leaves drip stains on my counter because it never seems to stop brewing. That's lame enough.

What a piece of crap it's just a coffee maker with ice container should've known better

Makes good tea, but the pitcher is crap. I bought mine in March and by September it was leaking. This is the second time I have had a pitcher go bad. There will not be a third one.

I was getting this to make iced coffee and am not pleased at all. Unless you have special cold brew coffee, which is really costly and hard to find you will get very bitter cold coffee. Not only that, but the device itself is just an x- large coffee maker, nothing special. You put ice up to the fill line, put the basket over that and brew, kind of a pain. It comes with two baskets, one to make tea, which I don't use, so I don't know how it would taste. May be better than the coffee. Overall I am very disappointed and would not recommend this. Just brew some coffee in a regular coffee pot and pour over ice, same thing! If my boyfriend hadn't rushed to throw the box away I would've already sent it back.

The coffee will absolutely never be strong enough, melts down ice, just absolutely wouldn't recommend

Junk...the plastic starts to crack over time due to the heat and cold mixture..should be glass!! no warranty on it either....ridiculous

Update 6-3-2017 The tea maker quit brewing after a year. It is sad, it made great tea. The carafe held up great.

This thing is so poorly made. The second time we used it the button you push to start brewing went down inside the housing and can't be reached. It wasn't a hard push either. I had discarded the packaging so it's not worth trying to send back but DONT BUY! The pitcher is ok but the tea maker, if it works, only makes about three inches of tea in the pitcher. The rest is supposed to be ice/melted ice. There are far better ways to make good iced tea!

I ordered this Oct. 23 2016, and 6 months later, it stopped working. It felt very hot and smelled of plastic. I believe I should get some sort of a refund. I had to replace it with another brand. I don't trust the Mr. Coffee brand anymore.

Worked great the first few times I used it, now it shuts off mid cycle and leaves water in the reservoir. I took it apart to see if it was some type of simple assembly error from the factory. My guess is that the issue is with the one way valve used to draw water from the reservoir to the heating coil. It is a super cheap plastic valve, and it does not draw quick enough at some point during the operating cycle. When it does not draw enough, the hearing element is starved of water and it shuts off because it thinks it is done. I tried to clear the valve by blowing air through it, but it still does the same thing after I put it back together. Maybe you will get lucky and get a good one, I got taken for $30 as I threw away the box not expecting the the Mr. Coffee Brand would produce such a substandard product. Be careful.

Quit working - would only run for half the cycle, then one quarter, and then finally for 3 minutes at a time. You had to keep turning it back on and it was a pain. Started doing this at about 6mo after purchase.

This is the worst tea maker I've ever owned. Never brews the full pot. I always have to restart it several times before the pot brews because the water doesn't drain correctly from the tea bag holder. I've cleaned the bag holder multiple times, but it remains the same. I should have returned it immediately. Had another model I used for years that I loved, but this model is terrible!

7 months down the road and it's no longer working correctly. It won't empty out of the top into the pitcher. We had the old style for years on end and was great till it finally quit. We had one before that when I got married and it lasted for years as well. That will be 23 years coming up. Now I am on the lookout for a new one. Very disappointed.