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
3.8–7.5 g
Typically 5.5 g
Ratio
1.5–3 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 1420sSeven minutes of simmering with the milk in from the start or added part-way, depending on the household. Orthodox leaf takes longer than CTC to give up its colour and will not be hurried.
Equipment
- Tea strainer
- Tea sock (cloth filter bag)
- Brewing saucepan
- Mortar and pestle
- Kulhar (unglazed clay cup) — The unglazed clay cup the drink is served in at stalls and on platforms, used once and discarded.
Vessel: An open pan rather than a covered one, so the mixture can be watched and lifted off the heat when it climbs.
Note: More time and slightly less leaf than an Indian CTC chai, because orthodox African black is whole-leaf material and releases colour and grip more slowly than a cut, torn and curled grain does. The result is a rounder, less tannic cup that takes spices well and takes sugar less well, and the difference from a CTC chai is a leaf-format difference rather than an origin one.
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) · 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.