Butter Bell Crock & L. Tremain Tea Steeper
The Butter Bell Crock and L. Tremain Tea Steeper are both great ceramic everyday products that are from the same company but have totally different uses.
As the names imply the Butter Bell is for keeping your butter fresh and ready for use while the L. Tremain Tea Steeper is a cup with lid and strainer for steeping tea. Both products are available from the same company and are available at several local kitchen stores and online from the L. Tremain website and other sites.
Lisa Tremain and her father Kenneth Tremain started their company, L. Tremain, in 1996 and are the sole manufacturer of the original Butter Bell Crock. The Butter Bell Crock was their first product and they have added more with the Tea Steeper and a few other products.
The Butter Bell Crock is a jar and lid where you keep the butter in the cup like lid and place the lid butter side down into the jar. You pour some water into the jar and the water with the air tight seal keeps the butter fresh and spreadable soft.
To use the Butter Bell Crock you simply fill the jar with about a half a cup of clean cold water and smash a stick of butter into the lid. The lid is like a flat piece of round ceramic with a lip on the top for easy use and a cup stuck on the inside.
The cup shape is actually part of the lid and all of the lid is made as one piece so there is no problem with the lid and cup part coming apart. Both the lid and jar are ceramic that is tough and thick enough to make it durable so using the Butter Bell and even the Tea Steeper daily is no problem.
The Butter Bell is designed well and works great for keeping your butter fresh and soft for spreading and immediate use without having to soften it. The Butter Bell keeps your butter fresh by using cold water and keeping the Butter Bell in a cooler place on your counter.
I have had no problems with the Butter Bell using it for a couple of months for my daily use on toast, potatoes and everything else I use butter on. The Butter Bell keeps the butter fresh and soft by keeping it at room temperature and the water tight lid keeps it fresh because air is what turns butter bad.
The Butter Bell Crock is actually an old design called a French butter dish or Acadian butter dish but taken to a modern and useful design for everyday kitchens. The L. Tremain Butter Bell Crock comes in several colors with plain sides and no designs made into the ceramic or with a few different designs for fancy or company moments.
The Butter Bell Crock costs about $23 for the different designs and colors but is well worth it for having the convenience of butter that is fresh and ready to spread. We have completely switched to butter in our everyday eating due to health concerns over margarine as well as the general enjoyment because butter tastes so much better.
The Butter Bell Crock is available from local stores such as Creative Kitchen as well as online from L. Tremain, Amazon and other sites. Now on to the L. Tremain Tea Steeper that is available from the same sites and stores and costs about $14 or as part of a gift set for about $35.
The Tea Steeper is a tea cup with a lid and tea strainer that fits perfectly into the cup for an easy and convenient way to brew tea. The strainer fits a large amount of tea for those herbal teas like chamomile where you have more volume of tea making material per cup.
The Tea Steeper makes a great cup and steeper for making your daily individual cup of tea for those occasions where you want a single cup without having to fuss with a pot or kettle. The tea strainer is a stainless steel basket with a handle that allows your tea leaves and other tea making stuff to sit in the water.
All you have to do to make good tea is take your desired amount of tea leaves or other herbal tea materials and put them into the strainer. Place the strainer into the cup and pour hot water into the cup and then put the lid on to allow the tea to brew to your desired strength.
The lid can also be used to hold the strainer while you enjoy your cup of tea so you can worry about clean up later and not have to worry about a mess on the counter or table. Both the Tea Steeper and the Butter Bell Crock clean up easily in either hot soapy water or in the dishwasher as they are common glazed ceramic.
The products I received are matching blue without any fancy designs with the Tea Steeper having a white interior and the Butter Bell being all blue except for the white ring on the top of the lid from manufacturing. You can get different designs for the Butter Bell but the Tea Steeper is your basic tea mug design almost like a coffee cup but in a few different colors.
The Tea Steeper makes a great way to brew and make the perfect cup of tea individually for those tea drinkers who do not want to brew a whole kettle or pot of tea. This is a fantastic way to make tea especially for those herbal teas where you have a bit more tea material or for teas like gunpowder tea that expands once it hits hot water.
The Tea Steeper from L. Tremain makes a great gift for others or for yourself and is a fantastic product along with the equally fantastic Butter Bell Crock. Both the Butter Bell rock and the Tea Steeper from L. Tremain are great and I highly recommend them.