Brewing timer
Any device that counts seconds. It earns its place at short steeps and loses it at long ones: five seconds is a quarter of a twenty-second gongfu infusion and a rounding error in a four-minute western steep, so the same instrument is decisive in one style and irrelevant in the other.
Identity
- Category
- Measurement
- Also called
- tea timer, steep timer, sand timer
- Material
- Digital, mechanical or sand
- Skill level
- Beginner
Porosity
Not porous. It contributes nothing of its own to the liquor, so it can be moved between teas freely and washed with detergent without consequence.
Where it comes from
Modern.
Named here rather than presented as generic equipment. The object belongs to a practice, and TeaHQ describes it from the outside.
If you do not own one
A phone. Sand timers are fixed to one duration and cannot follow a session where each infusion is longer than the last, which is what most multi-infusion brewing requires.
This one is not marked essential. The tea can be made without it.
Brewing methods it is used for
- Gongfu brewing (gaiwan) — A high-leaf, low-volume, many-infusions approach: a great deal of leaf in a small vessel, steeped for seconds at a time and poured off completely, repeatedly.
- Gongfu brewing (Yixing pot) — The same short-steep, high-leaf approach as gaiwan gongfu, carried out in a small unglazed clay pot that seasons over time and is dedicated to one tea.
- 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.
Care and maintenance
None. Keep it out of the steam, which is where kitchen electronics die.
Other measurements
Sources
This page is TeaHQ synthesis. No external source stands behind the description, the material or the account of how the object is cared for. Where the record names a tradition, that attribution is TeaHQ’s own reading of common practice rather than a citation.
TeaHQ names no maker, brand or shop and has nothing to sell. Nothing on this page should be read as advice to buy the object — the substitute note above exists because owning it is usually optional.