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.

Chai blend base

Chai preparationSynthesised parameters

Water temperature

95100 °C

Typically 100 °C

Leaf for 250 ml

3.86.3 g

Typically 5 g

Ratio

1.52.5 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.

  1. Infusion 1300sSimmered with water, milk, sugar and spice rather than steeped. The leaf goes in with the spices and the whole thing is brought to a boil more than once.

Equipment

  • Tea strainer

Vessel: An open saucepan, so the mixture can be watched and lifted off before it boils over.

Note: The ratio is per total liquid including milk. Milk raises the boiling point and blunts extraction, which is why chai uses more leaf and more heat than any western black-tea set.

What this does not tell you

  • These parameters are a synthesis of common practice rather than recorded practice for this specific tea.

  • How many infusions this tea will give beyond the schedule below is not recorded.

  • 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.

Methods TeaHQ describes but cannot give numbers for

1 of 15 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.