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
95–100 °C
Typically 100 °C
Leaf for 250 ml
8.8–13.8 g
Typically 11.3 g
Ratio
3.5–5.5 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 1480sEight minutes at a bare simmer, then repeatedly strained through the cloth bag from one pot to another. The pouring is part of the extraction and not a flourish.
Equipment
- Tea sock (cloth filter bag)
- Brewing saucepan
- Stainless steel teapot — The service pots behind a cha chaan teng counter are steel, kept hot and poured fast.
Vessel: A cloth sock strainer, which retains fine particles and gives the drink the smooth body it is known for. Rinse it in hot water and keep it wet between uses; a dried-out bag pours slowly and unevenly.
Note: Low- and mid-grown Ceylon is the backbone of this preparation and these are exactly that material: strong, coloury and thick-bodied rather than aromatic, which is what survives evaporated milk. A high-grown Ceylon in the same recipe gives a paler, brisker drink that the tradition does not want, which is why the grade matters more here than the garden does.
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.