Brewing

[FireArmada]

I am trying to find out how much Tea to Water to use. I have a Chinese pot. And mostly use Oolong teas.

[tenuki]

I recommend you put tea in the pot, then add water, then drink it.

[FireArmada]

I recommend you put tea in the pot, then add water, then drink it.

I am looking for a good rule of how much tea to use = to amount of water. My pot can hold about 14 oz of water 16 if all the way up

[tenuki]

I recommend you put tea in the pot, then add water, then drink it.

How much tea to use = to how much water used. My pot holds 1.8 oz

Now we are getting somewhere. That's a nice pot! (pulled from the show off thread...)



What tea are you brewing? The thing is every tea is different, so giving you a blanket recommendation is hard to do. The more specific you get the more specific we can get.

Also, are you interested in brewing gong fu style (lots of leaf short infusions) or western style ( little leaf and long infusions).

Gong fu style the general idea is to get as much leaf in there after expansion as possible without it becoming too packed. That means every leaf type will require a different amount and sometimes you will have to experiment to find it. Some people recommend a standard 3g/100ml, but I do not. however it may be a good place for you to start. Your pot is about 80ml (small small small) So I would try 2g.

Water temperature is the next variable to figure out. For oolongs that are not close to greens I would use boiling water and 20 seconds or so infusion times. For chinese greens water closer to 180 and slightly longer, maybe 50 seconds as a starting point.

[FireArmada]

sorry was thinking of cups and i edited the last post. well i would like to save as much leaves as i can. Save money. Tea is alot of money to drink everyday

[Chip]

Western style is about 2.3 grams per 6 ounces water. Longer steeps of 3-5 minutes are pretty typical.

[tenuki]

So western style it is.

[JP]

sorry was thinking of cups and i edited the last post. well i would like to save as much leaves as i can. Save money. Tea is alot of money to drink everyday

Many loose leaf teas can be brewed twice, with some of higher qualtiy teas capable of 3 or 4 steeps. Some puerh teas can be brewed in excess of 10 times. That reduces the cost per cup quite a bit.