Why are repeat steepings shorter?

[beforewisdom]

I've seen on a number of green tea bags to steep repeat pourings of green tea shorter than the first. Thirty seconds instead of a minute.

Why is that.

I would think that since a bunch of "tea essence" has already been removed, you would want longer, hotter steepings to do a more thorough extraction to get the smaller amount of remaining stuff out.

[blairswhitaker]

its usually a ratio of long-short-long. the first steep is doing a lot of rehydrating and opening up of the tea leaves, the second steep everything is fully opened up, hydrated, and still presumably quite warm, by the third steep things have let out most of their essence and now you need to go longer and or hotter to get a good steep.

[beforewisdom]

Very educational, thank you.

I guess going past 2-3 steepings takes a bit of practice to get the same cup of tea out of it.

[miig]

Hm, i'm not super-experienced, but still, I rarely get the same cup of tea during subsequent steepings. Thats most likely to happen in rather simple teas, e.g. not so high-quality Shus. But I found that especially in Green Tea, there's a lot of change. Thats not to say that later steeps need to be of inferior quality, on the contrary, some Wulongs and Puers give off particularily lovely steeps later on. But there's almost always an evolution.

[JBaymore]

"Why are repeat steepings shorter?"
Becasue you are all hyped up on the caffiene and can't wait.

best,

...............john

[beanbag]

This is the reply when I asked Den's Tea:

Japanese teas are made through more processes of kneading and rolling
than Chinese teas. Through those processes, the fibers are more broken
and the ingredients are extracted very fast. At 2nd brewing, the tea
leaves are fully opened and if you steep long, the taste become bitter.
(The ingredients or flavor are extracted even faster than the 1st
brewing)

More ingredients are still left with Chinese tea after 1st brewing
because many Chinese teas are tigtly rolled and its fibers are not that
broken like Japanese teas. Also Chinese green teas are less bitter than
Japanese teas, so you may want to steep longer to get more flavor, though
the bitterness wouldn't come a lot.

Hope this information answers your question.

Best wishes,

Den Shirakata
Den's Tea
http://www.facebook.com/DensTeaInc

[Chip]

This is the reply when I asked Den's Tea:

Japanese teas are made through more processes of kneading and rolling
than Chinese teas. Through those processes, the fibers are more broken
and the ingredients are extracted very fast. At 2nd brewing, the tea
leaves are fully opened and if you steep long, the taste become bitter.
(The ingredients or flavor are extracted even faster than the 1st
brewing)

More ingredients are still left with Chinese tea after 1st brewing
because many Chinese teas are tigtly rolled and its fibers are not that
broken like Japanese teas. Also Chinese green teas are less bitter than
Japanese teas, so you may want to steep longer to get more flavor, though
the bitterness wouldn't come a lot.

Hope this information answers your question.

Best wishes,

Den Shirakata
Den's Tea
http://www.facebook.com/DensTeaInc

Typically YMMV ... I brew a longer first steep, short second ... then steep lengths increase. Seems to work well for me. However, yeah, if you brew the second steep longer, the result is usually bitterness.

Strange, isn't it ... ?