Teforia was touted as the only “machine-learning tea infusion device,” on the market, and soon, the market will have a Teforia-shaped hole in it. As recently as last week, the device would run you a cool grand. Today, you can make algorithmically-infused tea for $US199. All sales are final because the company is dead.
Image: Teforia
On Friday, Teforia’s homepage was replaced with a long note to customers announcing that the end has come. This is a tech company, so going out of business has to be framed as the end of a “journey to elevate the tea experience,” thwarted by a market that couldn’t fully appreciate its mission of delivering “the most sophisticated and powerful infusion technology” for making a cup of tea.
Teforia writes that it never compromised and it remains proud that “the glass within the infusion globe and carafe [were] hand blown by a glass artisan, one at a time.” Unfortunately, the company writes, that it would have taken a lot more time and money “to educate the market” in this “very difficult time for hardware companies in the smart kitchen space.”
You’re probably reading the tea leaves here, and guessing that Teforia is hinting that the spectacular, $US118 ($154) million implosion of Juicero might be contributing to its troubles of educating the market about the value of an over-engineered machine that no one needs. For anyone keeping count, Teforia only wasted $US17 million, thank you very much.
In our test run of Teforia’s $US400 “Leaf,” Gizmodo’s resident Brit, Libby Watson, found that “the tea is fine,” but there was nothing that the machine could do that improved on her $US7 in-cup infuser. And now, for just $US192 more than that, you too can own a Teforia. Satisfaction is explicitly not guaranteed.
[Teforia via TechCrunch]