Lipton, Division of Conopco, Inc.

Unilever Bestfoods, North America Division of Conopco, Inc.

Joseph Vaitkus

Mauro Dominick Mordini

Michael Charles Cirigliano

Adrian Ioan Ponici

This invention is directed to an apparatus for brewing a beverage. The apparatus has a brew funnel with an elevation device that enables the end user to brew beverage, hot or cold, with a filter and loose beverage precursor and with beverage precursor packaged within a filter pack.

Apparatus for brewing a beverage

A brewing apparatus is provided including a housing with a water inlet channel, a heater to heat water delivered through the channel and a water dispenser within the housing for providing a spray of hot water to a brewing pot. The brewing pot is releasably attachable to the housing and includes a filter receptacle positioned to receive the spray of water and outlet aperture for allowing brewed tea to exit. A filter basket for containing the tea leaves is lodged within the filter receptacle. The basket has a base with a wire mesh screen and an integrally formed non-porous siphon shroud projecting upwardly from a central area of the floor base, the shroud being closed at the top while open at the bottom. A siphoning tube is lodged within the aperture of the filter receptacle and open at both ends. When nested, the siphon shroud surrounds the siphoning tube to create a siphon arrangement for continuously removing tea extract fluid from the filter basket. In an alternate preferred embodiment, the apparatus includes a fluted paper filter with a centered aperture fitting over the siphon shroud for nesting within the filter basket. Tea leaves are placed within the paper filter instead of directly within the basket.

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Greenvale, NY, United States of America

Joseph Vaitkus