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.
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.