Swirl your way to tea nirvana

One of my favorite jobs in college was at a loose leaf tea shop. I had all of the free tea I could drink, and on principle, they refused to serve coffee. The coffee ban made several customers angry (and me too, when I first started to work there), but after several months of serving and talking about tea, I considered myself lucky to have been exposed to its many benefits. To this day, one of my favorite things to do in winter is curl up on the couch with a cup of freshly brewed hot tea.

Any tea snob will tell you that the first step to properly brewing good tea is investing in a good infuser. Some infusers, like the infamous tea balls or spoons, leave too little room for the tea leaves to expand and therefore prevent them from releasing all of their delicious flavors.

Gift-giving season is upon us, and a perfect gift for a budding tea lover is a good infuser. Good infusers, however, most often leave something to be desired in terms of aesthetic beauty. Usually constructed simply from fine wire mesh and hard plastic, they definitely don't make a pretty stocking stuffer.

Thank goodness for the MoMA Design Store. Once again, they've taken the ordinary and turned it into the elegant with this Tea Stick Infuser by Flöz Design.

The tea stick is made from stainless steel and comes with a plastic insert that can be filled with loose tea. Once the stick is full, it can be dipped in a cup of boiling water and swirled around to create an attractive single serving of hot tea. You can fill it with chamomile and use it to stir honey into your herbal blend, or swirl a bit of milk and sugar into your English breakfast. Plus, it's dishwasher safe, so you don't need to worry about sacrificing the convenience of conventional tea infusers.

The Tea Stick Infuser is available through the MoMA Design Store for $24.