Steeping time in relation to amount of water

[Wolfean]

I was making a green tea and the package says one heaping teaspoon per cup and 2-3 minutes of steeping at 195 degrees. If I want to make two cups, I will obviously put in two teaspoons, but does the steeping time stay the same or should it increase as well? Is the steeping time 2-3 minutes for this tea regardless if it is 8 oz or 16 oz or 32 oz?

[Chip]

Steeping time remains basically the same, you are changing other ratios, but not time.

But the suggestions are suspect, 195* for a green tea is likely too hot. Thus, why not share the tea with us and see what we think.

Welcome to TeaChat.

[iannon]

Steeping time remains basically the same, you are changing other ratios, but not time.

But the suggestions are suspect, 195* for a green tea is likely too hot. Thus, why not share the tea with us and see what we think.

Welcome to TeaChat.

As is 2-3 Minutes..well..depending on what green tea it is if its sencha it could be wayyy too long

[Wolfean]

It's the Jasmine Chun Hao from Adagio. I've been drinking tea for a majority of my short life, though the majority being tea bags with the occasional loose leaf. Though recently I've made the full transition to loose leaf and it involves steeping time and temperature and amount of tea, all considerations that didn't really come up before. I've started with the suggestions on the bag, but I need to experiment further with the steeping time for each kind of tea.

Then I started wondering whether steeping time ever changes in relation to the amount of water, or it remains the same.

[Stentor]

You will want to find a ratio of "amount of leaf : amount of water" that you like.
Most of us use grams as the unit for measuring the amount of leaf and ounces as the unit for measuring the amount of water, as it is easier to say 0.6 g per oz for instance than 0.6 g per 30 ml.
A good place to start is 0.5 g of tea per ounce of water. If the tea turns out to be too light for your taste, increase leaf by 0.1 g or more, keep water the same. If it's too strong, reduce leaf, keep water the same, and so on.

For instance, you could start with 2.5 g of tea and 5 oz of water and go from there. If you don't have a scale that can measure in such small increments (although you might want to get one, being new to loose leaf tea) just experiment with how many teaspoons or half teaspoons of leaf you use while keeping the amount of water the same.

195° F seems to me a bit high for any green. I'd try 180, see how it is, and maybe try hotter if 180 was OK, or lower if it was bitter.
Do you have a thermometer?
If you don't, boil water, pour the boiling water into your empty teapot (or whatever brewing vessel you're using), this will preheat your teapot, which is good.
Then pour the water into another vessel like a serving pitcher.
This process of water coming into contact with the cool vessels should have cooled it down enough for you to make your tea.

The same goes with steeping time. If it's too strong or too bitter, reduce steeping time. As the others have said, there is no correlation between amount of water used and steeping time.

Also, please remember that you can steep loose leaf tea multiple times! That's why you shouldn't make steeps of 10 oz or more unless you want to drink 30 oz of tea in one sitting when making 3 infusions. Each infusion will taste a little different. You should be able to infuse 3 times with no problems, maybe more. Just see if the 4th, 5th or 6th infusion still has some flavor to offer.
Steeping time for the second infusion will be rather short, like a third or half of that of the first, then increase a little with each subsequent infusion.

Wow, this turned out longer than I had intended. And sorry if some of this was old news to you!
I hope this helps a bit. Just experiment a little. There's no shame in failing a couple of times. Don't give up too easily as the reward of a successful brew may be too big! Also, the experience you gain will help you with other teas in the future.
Have fun and enjoy your tea!

[JRS22]

195° F seems to me a bit high for any green. I'd try 180, see how it is, and maybe try hotter if 180 was OK, or lower if it was bitter.

Adagio lists this tea with the greens but describes it as an oolong - probably pouchong. That's probably why they recommend such a high temperature.

[Wolfean]

Thank you so much for all the information. It's wonderful to know that there is a community where a loose leaf novice can get some insight.

I don't have a small scale, but will surely purchase one soon. Any that you can recommend or are they all more or less the same? I do have a thermometer, which has helped when making the different types of teas I bought.

Also, please remember that you can steep loose leaf tea multiple times! That's why you shouldn't make steeps of 10 oz or more unless you want to drink 30 oz of tea in one sitting when making 3 infusions. Each infusion will taste a little different. You should be able to infuse 3 times with no problems, maybe more. Just see if the 4th, 5th or 6th infusion still has some flavor to offer. Steeping time for the second infusion will be rather short, like a third or half of that of the first, then increase a little with each subsequent infusion.

What do you mean by, "unless you want to drink 30 oz of tea in one sitting when making 3 infusions"? Are there certain teas that don't re-steep as well as others? So the second infusion is shorter than the first, but after that the steeping time increases?

Thanks again for all the help.

[iannon]

Thank you so much for all the information. It's wonderful to know that there is a community where a loose leaf novice can get some insight.

I don't have a small scale, but will surely purchase one soon. Any that you can recommend or are they all more or less the same? I do have a thermometer, which has helped when making the different types of teas I bought.

Also, please remember that you can steep loose leaf tea multiple times! That's why you shouldn't make steeps of 10 oz or more unless you want to drink 30 oz of tea in one sitting when making 3 infusions. Each infusion will taste a little different. You should be able to infuse 3 times with no problems, maybe more. Just see if the 4th, 5th or 6th infusion still has some flavor to offer. Steeping time for the second infusion will be rather short, like a third or half of that of the first, then increase a little with each subsequent infusion.

What do you mean by, "unless you want to drink 30 oz of tea in one sitting when making 3 infusions"? Are there certain teas that don't re-steep as well as others? So the second infusion is shorter than the first, but after that the steeping time increases?

Thanks again for all the help.

some of thos elittle mini digital scales like for jewelry on ebay work great..like this one
http://cgi.ebay.com/0-01-100-Gram-Digit ... 1177wt_905

[Stentor]

What do you mean by, "unless you want to drink 30 oz of tea in one sitting when making 3 infusions"? Are there certain teas that don't re-steep as well as others? So the second infusion is shorter than the first, but after that the steeping time increases?

Thanks again for all the help.

You're welcome

I mean that whenever you make loose leaf tea and don't want to waste it, you kind of commit to making several steeps. Therefore, if you make 10 oz per steep, you commit to drinking 30 oz of tea per sitting, assuming you're going to make 3 steeps.
There are some teas that resteep better than others, yes. How many infusions a tea will last is just experimenting, really. With green tea 3 is standard. I pretty much always do 4 with Japanese green tea. I'm not an expert on other teas, though. I hear oolong can go for around 7 infusions, just to give you an example. Like I said, experiment a little. Once you only end up with somewhat colored "tea-water", you're done

Yes, the second infusion doesn't require as long a steeping time as the first. Why? During the first infusion, the leaf has had a chance to soak up some water and open up (I'm sure you've noticed that). Therefore the leaves will give off extracts quicker than before. An extreme example is deeply steamed Japanese green tea: The second infusion is super short, like 5-15 seconds, so you practically don't let it sit at all.
Subsequent infusions require a little more time than the second one just because you have already extracted a lot from the leaves so it takes a little longer but usually not as long as the first one until you get to the 3rd or 4th infusion.