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
85–92 °C
Typically 89 °C
Leaf for 250 ml
2.5–3.8 g
Typically 3.1 g
Ratio
1–1.5 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 1210sThree and a half minutes off the boil. The characteristic fault with these teas in a mug is a stewed, flat cup rather than a bitter one.
Equipment
- Mug infuser basket
- Travel infuser bottle
- Empty filter bag
- Tea ball infuser
- Tea dosing spoon
Vessel: A wide basket. First-flush leaf in particular is bulky and pale and looks like too little when it is the right amount by weight.
Note: Distinctly cooler than the everyday-black band, because these teas are only partly the black tea their category name implies — first-flush Darjeeling in particular is lightly oxidised and behaves closer to an oolong, and boiling water flattens the muscatel and floral character it is priced for. A cup that tastes of nothing but astringency usually had water that was too hot rather than leaf that was too long.
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) · 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.