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
75–85 °C
Typically 80 °C
Leaf for 250 ml
1.3–2.5 g
Typically 1.8 g
Ratio
0.5–1 g /100 ml
No rinse
Infusion schedule
This is a multi-infusion style. The schedule below is authored to 1 infusions; beyond that, extend each steep noticeably rather than repeating the last time.
- Infusion 1210sThree and a half minutes before the first sip, by which time most of the buds have sunk. Top up at about half a glass, indefinitely.
Equipment
- Travel infuser bottle
- Vacuum flask
- Chinese lidded mug — The lid holds heat through a long slow drink and, tilted, holds the leaf back while you sip — which is why the inner basket is optional.
- Double-walled glass — An air gap keeps the outer skin holdable while leaf sits in near-boiling water all morning.
- Hot water boiler — Topping up all day needs hot water available all day, which is what the insulated boiler is for.
Vessel: A tall straight glass. Fine bud material is worth watching: the buds stand, rise and settle as they wet, and that display is a large part of why these teas are drunk from glass rather than from a pot.
Note: The lightest leaf load in the grandpa family and the coolest water, because a supreme grade is nearly all bud and has nothing coarse to slow the extraction down. The usual grandpa worry — an unremovable leaf load that keeps working — is at its sharpest here, and the answer is less leaf rather than cooler water alone.
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.
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.