Herbal infusion (tisane)
Steeping leaves, flowers or fruit that are not Camellia sinensis. The method looks like tea brewing and follows different rules, because the material has none of the compounds that make tea sensitive to heat and time.
Also called tisane, botanical infusion, herbal steeping.
How it works
Roughly 1 to 2 g of dried botanical per 200 ml, water at or very near boiling, steeped for five to ten minutes — considerably longer and hotter than most tea. The reason is compositional: tea leaf carries catechins that extract fast and turn harsh, which is what makes tea brewing a race against bitterness. Most botanicals do not, so a long steep extracts more aroma and body without the penalty. Covering the vessel matters more here than with tea, because much of what a flower or leaf gives is volatile and leaves with the steam.
Why choose it
It is the only appropriate method for most botanical material, and the single most common mistake is applying tea’s timings to it. A chamomile infusion steeped for two minutes at 80 °C is under-extracted in a way the same treatment would not make a green tea.
Equipment
- Porcelain teapot — Glazed porcelain
- Glass teapot — Borosilicate glass
- Mug infuser basket — Stainless steel mesh, or plastic with a fine screen
Common problems
- Applying tea temperatures and timings, which under-extracts almost every botanical
- Leaving the vessel uncovered, so the volatile aromatics escape with the steam
- Too little material — dried flowers and leaves are very light, and a spoonful weighs far less than a spoonful of tea
- Expecting a second infusion; most botanicals give the great majority of what they have in one long steep
Teas with parameters authored for this method
No tea in the catalogue carries a parameter set for this method yet. The method is described and the numbers are simply not written, and none are estimated here from a neighbouring style.
Other western methods
Same family, so the approach is close — the vessel, the ratio and the intent still differ.
- Korean green tea brewing — A low-temperature approach to Korean green tea in which the water is cooled through a separate open vessel before it ever meets the leaf, and the pot is emptied entirely into the cups each time. Darye names the etiquette; the brewing approach below is shared by everyday practice outside any formal setting.
- Kyusu brewing (Japanese style) — The Japanese domestic approach to green tea: a moderate quantity of leaf, water well off the boil, short steeps, and two or three infusions from the same leaf with the times adjusted each time.
- Low-temperature brewing (gyokuro style) — A great deal of shaded Japanese leaf in a very small volume of water that is deliberately far below boiling — cool enough that the vessel can be held bare-handed. It is the most extreme low-temperature steeping in common practice, and it exists to extract one part of the leaf while leaving another behind.
- Mug infuser brewing — Loose leaf in a basket inside a mug — the most common way loose tea is actually made, and the method most often responsible for people concluding that loose leaf is not worth the trouble.
- Sweet tea (American Southern style) — Black tea brewed hot and strong as a concentrate, sweetened while it is still hot, then diluted with cold water and chilled. It is a regional American household staple, and the sequence of those four steps is the whole method — rearranging them produces a different and worse drink.
- Tea bag brewing — Pre-portioned tea in a permeable bag. The format was an accident of early twentieth-century sampling practice and became the dominant way tea is drunk worldwide, because it removes every decision except how long to leave it in.
- Western brewing (teapot or mug) — A small amount of leaf in a large volume of water, steeped once for a few minutes and then strained off. The approach most English-speaking drinkers already know, and the one most teas sold in the West are made for.
Sources
This page is TeaHQ synthesis. No external source stands behind the description of this method. It is written from common practice as TeaHQ understands it, and the parameters in the table above come from each tea’s own record rather than from this page.
The numbers for this method are held per tea, never on the method itself. Where a tea has no set written for herbal infusion (tisane), TeaHQ shows nothing rather than converting its numbers from another style — a scaled ratio and a halved time read as an answer while being one nobody authored.
Written comparisons
Where TeaHQ has set this method against something it is routinely confused with, and argued the differences out in full.
- Brewing a botanical vs brewing tea — Tea brewing is a race against bitterness and botanical brewing is not, because the compounds that make tea sensitive to heat and time are largely absent from a flower or a root. Applying tea’s rules to a botanical under-extracts it; applying a botanical’s rules to tea ruins it.
- Decoction vs infusion — The distinction is old, precise and almost never explained on a packet. Infusion pours hot water over material and waits; decoction holds the material at a simmer. Which one a botanical needs is decided by how tough it is, not by what it is called.
- Moroccan mint tea vs a plain mint infusion — One contains tea and the other does not, which is the whole distinction and the one most often lost. Ordering ‘mint tea’ in a café can produce either, and they are not interchangeable in taste, strength or in what the leaf contributes.