Tea Strainer for Afternoon Tea

This is a tea strainer to be used with afternoon tea. It sits on top of your tea cup while you pour the tea through it. Then you can rest it in its own bowl when not in use. It catches your tea leaves as you pour the tea through it. I designed it so that you can take the mesh off of a snap ball tea strainer and insert it into the design.

I found that when you take apart a snap ball tea strainer you will get one side that has a clean rim and the other side has a metal fin that sticks out of the rim. In that case, I used my plastic snips to remove a small piece of the printed model where that metal fin sticks into the rim of the model to give it room. You will know what I mean if you try to build it.

This does not require glue as the fit is tight enough that the strainer can be inserted and it will hold it due to the tight tolerance. It can easily be popped out again when it is time to clean the strainer.

I also included a small bowl to rest the strainer in when it is not in use.

The crest is that of some town in England. I forget which.

Use a food grade plastic when printing. There is a lot to know about food safety with 3d printing so do your research and know your risk tolerance.

Below is a link to the kind of ball tea strainer I designed this around. There are many similar ones, any type of the same size will work fine. I just used the standard kind you can find in most stores.

https://www.amazon.com/Strainer-JEXCULL-Premium-Stainless-Infusers/dp/B08P91T69N/ref=zg_bs_g_3118177011_d_sccl_2/138-1310977-2088351?th=1

Wikipedia text to help with search terms

A tea strainer is a type of strainer that is placed over or in a teacup to catch loose tea leaves.

When tea is brewed in the traditional manner in a teapot, the tea leaves are not contained in teabags; rather, they are freely suspended in the water. As the leaves themselves are not consumed with the tea, it is usual to filter them out with a tea strainer. Strainers usually fit into the top of the cup to catch the leaves as the tea is poured.

Some deeper tea strainers can also be used to brew single cups of tea, much as teabags or brewing baskets are used – the strainer full of leaves is set in a cup to brew the tea. It is then removed, along with the spent tea leaves, when the tea is ready to drink. By using a tea strainer in this way, the same leaves can be used to brew multiple cups.

Despite the fact that tea strainer use has declined in the 20th century with mass production of the tea bag, it is still preferred among connoisseurs, who claim that keeping the leaves packed in a bag, rather than freely circulating, inhibits diffusion. Many assert that inferior ingredients, namely dust-quality tea, are often used in tea bags.

Tea strainers are usually either sterling silver, stainless steel, or china. Strainers often come in a set, with the strainer itself and a small saucer for it to rest on between cups. Tea strainers themselves have often been turned into artistic masterpieces of the silver- and goldsmith's craft, as well as rarer specimens of fine porcelain.

Brewing baskets (or infusing baskets) resemble tea strainers, but are more typically put in the top of a teapot to keep the tea leaves contained during brewing. There is no definitive boundary between a brewing basket and a tea strainer, and the same tool might be used for both purposes.