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.

CTC black tea

Tea bag brewingSynthesised parameters

Water temperature

95100 °C

Typically 98 °C

Leaf for 250 ml

2.53.8 g

Typically 3 g

Ratio

11.5 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.

  1. Infusion 1150sAgitate once or twice rather than squeezing the bag at the end — squeezing forces out the most astringent fraction.

Vessel: A standard mug. A bag holds cut leaf that extracts fast, which is why the times here are shorter than for the same tea loose.

Note: A teabag is a leaf-grade decision as much as a format one. These times assume the small-particle leaf bags are filled with, not whole leaf in a bag.

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)

Methods TeaHQ describes but cannot give numbers for

1 of 15 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.