Brew assistant
Pick a tea and a brewing style. Everything below is transcribed from that tea's own authored parameters — nothing is scaled from another style, because a ratio and a steep time do not transfer between styles.
Water temperature
98–100 °C
Typically 100 °C
Leaf for 250 ml
2–3.8 g
Typically 2.8 g
Ratio
0.8–1.5 g /100 ml
No rinse
Infusion schedule
This style is authored as a single infusion. A second steep from the same leaf will be thinner rather than merely weaker.
- Infusion 1300sBrought to the boil and held at a bare simmer for about five minutes. Longer flattens it — an aged white is not a brick and does not need the punishment one takes.
- Infusion 2480sRefill and simmer longer. Aged white cake gives two or three kettles, and the second is usually the fullest.
Equipment
- Kettle
- Brewing saucepan
- Tea strainer
- Tetsubin (unlined iron kettle)
- Teapot warmer
- Boiling teapot — The vessel for boiling rather than steeping: heat-resistant, wide-based, and made to sit on a heat source with the leaf in it.
- Electric ceramic tea stove — A radiant plate takes the glass and clay vessels that boiling calls for.
- Induction plate — Works only with ferromagnetic material, so an unlined iron kettle is fine and the glass boiling pot beside it is not.
Vessel: A glass or ceramic kettle on a low heat. Pieces broken from the cake rather than crumbled — powder makes the liquor cloudy and hard to pour clear.
Note: A much lighter leaf load and a much shorter boil than any dark tea takes, and the difference is what stops this being the dark-tea set copied across. Aged white leaf is thin and open where a dark tea is coarse and compressed, so it gives everything up quickly and then gives up structure too. The character boiling brings out — dried fruit, medicinal sweetness, a thicker body than any steeped version of the same cake — is what the practice exists for.
What this does not tell you
These parameters are a synthesis of common practice rather than recorded practice for this specific tea.
No caffeine estimate is authored for this tea, so the assistant cannot tell you how strong the cup will be in that sense.
Leaf weight is a weight. A teaspoon is not — a fluffy white tea and a tightly rolled oolong differ several-fold by volume, so scales beat spoons here.
Other authored styles for this tea: Western brewing (teapot or mug) · Boiling and decoction · Gongfu brewing (gaiwan)
Methods TeaHQ describes but cannot give numbers for
1 of 28 brewing methods have no authored parameters on any tea. They are listed rather than hidden: the method exists and is described, the numbers are simply not written yet. Nothing here is estimated from a neighbouring style.
- Herbal infusion (tisane)
Herbal infusion is on that list for a second reason as well: the herbal catalogue is two records held in review, so there is nothing to brew even once parameters exist.