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
2–10 °C
Typically 5 °C
Leaf for 250 ml
2–3.8 g
Typically 2.5 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 128800sEight hours in the refrigerator, and the pellet is the reason it is that long: a tightly rolled ball has to open before anything can be extracted from it, and in cold water opening alone takes the first two or three hours.
Equipment
- Glass teapot
- Cold brew bottle
- Plastic teaware — Most cold-brew bottles and travel brewers are heat-tolerant plastic: light and unbreakable, and a surface that takes up aroma from smoky, roasted and heavily scented teas.
Vessel: A sealed bottle or jar with room for the leaf to expand — a rolled oolong swells to several times its dry volume and a jar packed to the neck will not let it. Strain when the time is up rather than leaving the leaf in; overnight is fine, a second night is not.
Note: Cold water extracts the aromatic and sweet fractions readily and the bitter and astringent ones barely at all, which is why a light oolong cold-brews into something noticeably sweeter and more floral than the same leaf hot, and why the technique flatters this style more than any other. A second extraction on the same leaf works and is thinner; hot water on already cold-brewed leaf gives a poor cup and is not worth the leaf.
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: Gongfu brewing (gaiwan) · Western brewing (teapot or mug)
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.