What's the best way brew tea? How much tea leaf do I use? What temperature water should I use to brew tea? How long should I brew my tea?

You may not realize it, but all of these questions are related. The process to brew great tea requires just a few simple directions, great tea leaves, and something to hold the loose tea. Our constant recommendation for an infuser to hold the tea leaves is the Teeli Tea Brewing Basket, accessible along with other infusing methods on our Merchandise page. Once you have an infuser you'll need to know how much tea leaf to put inside it.

The amount of tea leaf you use per cup is the uniform for almost all tea leaf types, about a level spoonful, assuming the tea is a normal weight/volume. Some teas, white teas especially, are light for their volume and you may have to use as much as 2 spoonfuls a 8 oz cup. Also the more tea you are brewing at a time, the less tea leaf you'll find you need for the same water measurement. For example a mug might take a spoonful of tea leaves, but a pot 4 times the size of that mug its size will often only take two or three spoonfulls, and not the four spoonfuls you might expect. When in doubt, use less tea leaf. It's a very common mistake for new tea brewers to think that more tea leaf is going to make better tea, as it is rarely ever true.

Once you have in your possession a good way to control the tea leaves, the next thing you'll need is water. Good water is pretty easy to come by in Seattle, where the Teacup is located, but even though our water supply is one of the best in the country the Teacup still filters the water is uses to make tea. Water free of lime, impurities, and other unwanted stuff makes better tea because there is less to interfere with the taste of your tea. Just do what you can to make sure the water is as fresh and pure as possible to bring out the best tea it can, though you never want to use distilled water for tea, it just tastes flat.

With tea leaves, and infuser, and water, now you simply need to heat the water. If there is a trick to making great tea, water temperature is the trick. Different types of tea do better at different water temperatures. So you'll need to know what type of tea you are brewing, and then you can identify its best water temperature, and also the best length of time for steeping. We've created this handy table for your reference when brewing loose tea:

Tea type	Water Temperature	Steeping Time
White tea	160°	1.5 to 2 minutes
Green tea	170°	2 minutes
Oolong tea (greener)	170°	2-3 minutes
Oolong tea (darker)	190-212°	2-4 minutes
Black tea	212°(rolling boil)	3 minutes
Herbal tea	212°(rolling boil)	3-5 minutes

You can use any kitchen probe thermometer to measure the temperature of your brewing water, and once you know what the lower temperatures look like we find that most people can just monitor the water as it heats and don't need to measure much. If you don't have a thermometer at home, you can get one on our Merchandise page.

After you've steeped your tea, you can remove the tea leaves from the water. For most high quality tea leaves, such as the ones sold on this site, you should be able to brew second (or even third and fourth) cup from those same tealeaves. Some types of tea take this better than others, and some, such as White and Oolong teas, were specially produced to be used several times.

As always, all of the above are simply guidelines. How you think your tea is brewed best is how your tea is brewed best, no matter what we say. Always feel free to find your own method, and never feel constrained by us or anyone. Tea is for personal enjoyment, and as long as you enjoy your tea, you're doing it correctly!

What is the difference between black and green tea? What is oolong? What is white tea?

Customers often ask us these questions without realizing that all these kinds of true tea comes from the same plant, the Camellia sinensis, a relative of our common variety garden flowering Camellia plant. Herbal infusions, yerba mate, and other beverages are from a complete different plants. The different types of true tea are the result of differing oxidation levels that the tea leaves undergo during processing, after being picked green from the Camellia sinensis plant.

All tea leaves are the same when they are picked, commonly from some varietal of the Camellia sinensis plant, originally native to China, but a close relative of which is found native in the foothills of the Himalayas. Once picked, the leaves are delicately treated until they reach the processing location. The first step for all tea leaves is withering, which allows the leaves to be processed into useable tea leaves.

After withering, the next step of the processing defines the type of tea the leaves will become, as shown in this chart:

Click image for larger view

What is orange pekoe and do you have any?

Orange pekoe is part of a grading system for tea leaves, once used for all tea sold to the West, but now primarily used in India and Sri Lanka. This grading system also includes the words "flowery," "golden," "tippy," "finest," and "special," and the system results in letter classifications when abbreviated, such as TGFOP ("tippy golden finest orange pekoe"). Often people ask us for this tea name when they have been drinking boxed tea labeled "orange pekoe," not realizing that the term refers not at all to the tea's flavor.

If you are looking for a nice black tea, smooth and ready to drink in the morning, we suggest our English Breakfast or its bigger brother, the Ceylon Kenilworth. Both are great examples of a classic black tea, refreshing and soothing, reminiscent of mother's kitchen.

With what is tea flavored or scented?

Tea is flavored and scented with tea scent. We know that alone may not be helpful, but teas in the Teacup are scented with flavors extracted from their natural sources whenever possible. Sometimes the flavor agent cannot be directly extracted and must be recreated using extracts from other foods. Some teas, not carried in our store, use chemically created scents or natural scents augmented with chemical agents. We feel these chemically-scented teas taste metallic and flat and do not represent the best a tea can be.

We are always ecstatic to find a new flavored tea to add to our list, but if you find we do not carry a flavored tea you are looking for, please let us know. If we can find the tea naturally-flavored, we are often happy to carry it.

How much caffeine is in tea?

The amount of caffeine in tea depends greatly on the water temperature at which you brew the tea. For a standard black tea, brewed with boiling water for three minutes (our recommended time and temperature for black tea), you'll get about 50 mg of caffeine per cup. Green tea at 170° F for two minutes will produce about 30 mg per cup. By comparison, drip coffee has about 100 to 130 mg of caffeine per cup.

Herbal tea, of course, is naturally caffeine-free, and decaffeinated teas often have less than 10 mg per cup.