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.

Sencha

Ice steeping (kōridashi)Synthesised parameters

Water temperature

05 °C

Typically 2 °C

Leaf for 250 ml

1020 g

Typically 15 g

Ratio

48 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.

  1. Infusion 12700sTimed by the ice rather than by the clock. Anything from half an hour to a couple of hours depending on the room, and it is finished when the ice is.

Equipment

  • Shiboridashi
  • Glass teapot
  • Houhin

Vessel: A lidded dish or a shiboridashi with the ice heaped straight onto the dry leaf. No water goes in at any point; adding some turns this into an ordinary cold brew.

Note: Unshaded sencha gives less than a shaded leaf does and gives it faster, so the ice load is lighter and the wait shorter. New-season leaf is the usual choice. The ratio is against the water the ice melts into, not against a cup — a generous handful of ice yields a few sips. Brew the leaf conventionally afterwards, because almost all of its hot-water extraction is still there.

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.

  • 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) · Kyusu brewing (Japanese style) · Flash-chilled iced tea · Tea bag brewing · Cold brew tea

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.