Telling the temperature without a thermometer.

So at the moment I currently don’t have a thermometer, but I hope to get one soon. I have 2 teas that require 175 degrees and the other 208, just under boiling the water.

If anyone has any way of telling how to tell when my water is at 175 degrees I would greatly appreciate it.

9 Replies
K S said

Here is a guide I found online you can use. Scroll down a little until you see Warm it up. http://www.veetea.com/site/articles/Water-Temperatures

Love your user name by the way

Spencer said

The crab eyes/shrimp eyes method is what I use in my single-temperature electric kettle!

Works perfectly.

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Hillel said

FWIW, Here is a helpful note from Tea Class (http://www.teaclass.com/lesson_0104.html):
If you don’t have a thermometer or a kettle that lets you gauge temperature, you’ll typically find that boiling water that is allowed to sit for 5 minutes will have dropped to roughly 180F.

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Also if you pour boiling water into a ceramic or cast iron teapot that hasn’t been pre-heated that alone brings down the temperature drastically usually.

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weegeebee1 said

General rule I use is that for every transfer of water (into cold vessels), I’m losing about 5-10 degrees. Nothing scientific about it, just kind of what I think. I’m sure some nerd will come on here and make me look like an idiot, but I’m sticking to my guns.

I ended up using K S’s method, it worked very well for the Oolong you gave me.

I checked the temperature of the water in my cast iron pot right after pouring boiling water and it was 165F…

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A thermometer will be useful, but If you will be enjoying and exploring different types of tea for some time to come, you may want to consider a variable temperature tea kettle. Here’s a general article that you may find helpful.
http://everythingfortea.com/buying-guides/best-tea-temperature/

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