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
85–95 °C
Typically 90 °C
Leaf for 250 ml
2.5–4.5 g
Typically 3.5 g
Ratio
1–1.8 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 160sOne minute, and take the bag out. These are not teas that reward being left in — the roasted and grain characters arrive early and the astringency arrives after.
Equipment
- Empty filter bag
- Pyramid teabag
- Hot water boiler — The office and household case for a held-hot boiler is exactly this one — a bag, a mug and no waiting.
Vessel: A mug. Japanese everyday teas are also sold in large 'tea pack' bags meant for a jug, which is the same preparation scaled and is how most of this material is actually drunk at home in summer.
Note: Hotter and shorter than a Japanese loose-leaf steep of the same tea, which is the standard trade-off a bag imposes: the leaf inside is cut fine and cannot be given the gentle low-temperature treatment a whole leaf wants, so the parameters move to the settings that get a clean cup out quickly. Water at a rolling boil is fine here in a way it is not for sencha, because roasted and coarse material has very little left that heat can spoil.
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) · Kyusu brewing (Japanese style) · 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.