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
12.5–17.5 g
Typically 15 g
Ratio
5–7 g /100 ml
Rinse recommended
Infusion schedule
A session of 8–15 infusions is typical. The schedule below is authored to 6; beyond that, extend each steep noticeably rather than repeating the last time.
- Infusion 110sAfter a discarded rinse.
- Infusion 28s
- Infusion 312s
- Infusion 420s
- Infusion 535s
- Infusion 660s
Equipment
- Yixing teapot
- Fairness pitcher (cha hai)
- Tea tray (cha pan)
- Unglazed clay teapot (non-Yixing)
- Tea scale
- Tea boat
- Tasting cup
- Tea cloth
- Tetsubin (unlined iron kettle)
- Cha he (tea presentation vessel)
- Waste water bowl (jianshui)
- Cup stand (chatuo)
- Tea pet
- Cha dao utensil set
- Tea tongs
- Brewing timer
- Charcoal brazier (fenglu)
- Nixing pottery teapot — Nixing is the other unglazed Chinese pot used the same way as Yixing: burnished rather than glazed, so it stays porous.
- Sha diao (clay water kettle) — The Chaozhou clay kettle is the traditional water vessel for small-pot brewing — thin-walled so a small volume boils fast and is boiled again between rounds.
- Tea mat (chaxi cloth) — The dry-table alternative to a draining tray: a cloth defines the surface and the waste goes into a bowl instead of through the table.
- Electric ceramic tea stove — The common tea-table heat source in China, because a radiant plate heats clay, glass and unlined iron that induction cannot.
- Travel gongfu set — The packed version of the same practice, at the cost of vessel size — smaller pots shorten every infusion.
Vessel: Unglazed yixing clay, which holds heat better than porcelain and absorbs oils from the tea over time. One pot should be kept to one category — the absorption that helps a dedicated pot ruins a shared one.
Note: Close to the gaiwan schedule by design. The clay changes heat retention and mouthfeel rather than the extraction targets, so the times are near-identical and the vessel is the variable.
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.