Tea drinkers rejoice! I came across an interesting product online the other week and just had to dig a bit deeper and contact the company to find out much more. Introducing: Miito. An innovative product that heats liquids directly in the vessel to be used, hence eliminating the heating of excess water. How many times do you overfill your kettle when you only need one cup of tea? All of that extra water you boil is going to waste as it requires more energy to heat. Miito solves that problem. With Miito you would simply fill your cup with water, place it onto the induction base and immerse the rod in the liquid. The induction base heats the rod, which then heats the liquid surrounding it. Miito works with any size and is especially great when you want to make yourself just a cup of tea or have people over for a pot or two. Miito isn’t just for tea drinkers as you can also heat your soup or milk for a coffee. Another great feature is that the minimalistic shape of the rod allows it to be cleaned easily. No more electric kettles that accumulate limescale that can be difficult to scrub and make it look just like new.
Miito does not have an instate button: simply lift the rod from the base and it shifts to “Standby” mode. In this mode a small current flows, which detects the ferrous material of the induction plate. Once a vessel is placed onto the base and the rod is placed inside, the full induction power turns on and heats the induction plate of the rod. The device signals once the liquid has boiled and shifts back into “Standby”. By placing the rod on the base, the device shuts off.
This is probably the part of the article where you’re wondering “how does this actually work?!” Miito is based on induction technology, which is basically the wireless transfer of energy. Its bottom base creates an electromagnetic field, which heats only ferrous (magnetic) materials, i.e. the stick. When the stick is placed inside a vessel filled with a liquid, it heats up and transfers the heat directly to the liquid, meaning that only the liquid will be heated. View the video at the end of this post to see the product in action.
I think the team at Miito has thought of almost everything in this very unique product! The one thing that I would love to see included is a feature where the water temperature can be chosen so that we tea drinkers can enjoy a more delicate cup of tea when we want. 
The Cup of Life chatted with Nils Chudy from Miito to learn a bit more about their history with tea, how the product came about and what’s next.
Do you have a love for tea?
At the moment I live in Copenhagen and I can tell you: the danish autumn and winter is dark and cold. On these dark and rainy afternoons it is simply the best to drink a nice tea and enjoy the warmth it brings!
How did you come up with this interesting concept?
Miito all started with looking at electric kettles and noticing that they all look so similar: either like a 3D render or like a high-speed train. Later, while researching electric kettles more closely, we noticed that there was a major design flaw in the majority of electric kettles out there: they are extremely wastefully designed! The minimum fill line of the majority of kettles is at approximately 500ml. This means that if you want one cup of tea (250ml) you waste 50% of the hot water, therefore one wastes 50% of the energy.
Leyla Acaroglu (sustainability provocateur) said in her TED presentation: “One day of extra energy use [from overfilling electric kettles] is enough to light all the streetlights in England for a night.”
With Miito we set out to redesign the electric kettle from the ground up, asking the question: how can we change people’s habits of overfilling electric kettles in order to save energy.
When is Miito expected to be available to the public?
Miito is still under development. There is a visual prototype of how Miito is supposed to look and a technical “working mock-up” to explain and show how Miito works. In the future we aim to combine these prototypes in order to make a working prototype of Miito.
What’s next?
Getting Miito to the market! There are many different ways how this can be done and currently we are investigating our different options and scenarios. But one thing is clear: we want Miito to get out there and invade people’s kitchens!