Roxanne said

Resteeping questions

Hi
Can you guys tell me the “rules” (if any) on resteeping . Like …does it have to be resteeped within a certain time? or any other info this newbie needs to know;) Thanks!!

5 Replies
soleiltea said

Good question, Roxanne! It depends on the tea. A very good Tie Guan Yin, for example, can be re-steeped 23 times whereas a lower grade English breakfast tea can only be steeped maybe once or twice.

If you want to get more brews out of the cup, use sufficient tea leaves for the amount of water (ex. ~5g of White Peony for 8oz of water), don’t let the first cup steep for too long, resteep within a couple minutes, significantly reduce brewing time for 2nd and 3rd cup and then gradually increase your steeping time for each subsequent cup. These are just some general rules of thumb. The best way to figure it out by experimenting with your favorite teas :) Hope this helps!

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AllanK said

How many times you can resteep something also depends upon brewing methods. When Western brewing, using less tea for longer times you may get three or four steeps out of an average tea. When gongfu brewing, using more tea and shorter brew times you may get ten or more steeps out of the same tea. High quality puerh tea is known to go more than twenty steeps.

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As far as time limits go, it’s not terribly urgent to re-steep right away. You may not have time to re-steep on your way to work or whatever, or you may not feel like drinking three quarts of the same tea all in the same morning (some types of tea can be re-used quite a few times, lol). A lot of us just leave our leaves sitting around until we feel like using them again later in the day or even the next day. If you want to go longer than a day or so between steeps I’d recommend putting the wet leaves in the fridge or spreading them out to dry so you don’t have problems with mold or whatever.

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It also depends on taste.

When re-steeping, the idea is to enjoy it. If someone says that you can only steep this tea x number of times, but you still find it enjoyable after x+1, by all means keep resteeping. It’s not a hard rule, you can adjust temperature and brewing time to what suits you best.

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I agree with Ricardo…When you have the basic, you can forget about the rules and just enjoy the experience.

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