I like drinking tea, and I buy moderately expensive tea. Today I was skimming Mastodon and saw @mnw saying “I’m not sure how long to steep green tea.”
Usually, expensive green tea has instructions; but in a pinch I use water that isn’t quite boiling (85°C), let it steep for 45s to 60s, drink it, repeat twice. If you have very good tea, you can keep doing this, steeping it up to five or six times. As long as it tastes good, keep drinking it. Usually the colors start to fade after the third steeping (in my price range).
Wikipedia says:
Please ignore all the talking of utensils. You don’t need any of that unless you want them because it looks cool and you feel happy performing a little ceremony for yourself or some friends.
When I started, I used a very simple heuristic: boil water, pour into a cup and wait for a few seconds, then pour it into another coup and repeat. Assuming each change of cup reduces the temperature by five to ten degrees. It’s a nice way to get lower water temperatures without a thermometer. 😅
For delicate Japanese green tea, for example, I will use even lower temperatures: 50–60°C, and first steeping 45s, second and third steeping just 10s each.
#Tea
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Ah, tea!
I’ve taken to just leaving the leaves in and drinking white tea cold. Makes me pee a lot.
– Alok 2020-10-19 06:21 UTC
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But that’s true for almost anything...
– Alex Schroeder 2020-10-19 07:28 UTC
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Browsing tea online and coming across Gold Medal Gyokuro (best of 2019). It’s sold out. The price is 10g / 90,00 CHF i.e. about $10,000/kg. Wow.
– Alex 2020-10-23 14:22 UTC