TeaHQ

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.

Matcha

Whisking (bowl-prepared powdered tea)Recorded parameters

Water temperature

70–80 °C

Typically 75 °C

Leaf for 250 ml

5–10 g

Typically 7 g

Ratio

2–4 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 130sWhisking time rather than steeping time — around 2 g of powder into 70 ml of water.

Equipment

  • Chawan (matcha bowl)
  • Chasen (bamboo whisk)
  • Chashaku (bamboo scoop)
  • Tea cloth
  • Matcha sieve
  • Kusenaoshi (whisk stand)
  • Natsume (matcha caddy)
  • Hishaku (bamboo water ladle)
  • Gooseneck kettle
  • Ro and furo (hearth and brazier)
  • Jian ware tea bowl (jianzhan) — The dark-glazed conical bowl was made for whisked powdered tea: white froth on a near-black ground is easy to read, which was the point of the contest it was made for.
  • Stone tea mill — Nothing can be whisked until tencha has been ground, and the granite mill is what does it slowly enough to keep the powder cool.
  • Hagi ware — A soft, crazed, open-bodied ware used for tea bowls, which visibly changes colour with use.

Vessel: Wide bowl; a mug is too narrow for a whisk to work in.

What this does not tell you

  • 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.

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.