So tell me, fellow Steepsters, how DO you STEEP?

I tend to like blacks with cooler water than most here at Steepster Tea land, they get too astringent for me when I boil the water for black teas. My Honeybush teas must have boiling water. I use my Chatsford teapot most of the time and I always use the Chatsford filter basket for all my tea brewing…I don’t like leaves floating around my cuppa!

I have only been drinking tea for about a year.

Here is my standard steeping:
1. In an open sauce pan, heat the water until Fish Eyes break the surface (around 175 degrees)
2. Put usually three teaspoons of tea into the strainer of my basic 24 oz ForLife pot.
3. Pour the water over the leaves.
4. Wait three minutes.
5. Remove the strainer from the the teapot.
6. Pour the tea into a large mug and wait 10 minutes for it to be cool enough to enjoy.

This is how I have been steeping for the past year or so. However, recently I went to a tea shop that has really changed how I look at steeping. I am going to post that in a new discussion. I hope that’s okay.

after I saw all the steep methods, I found everyone has his or her own way to steep the tea. For me, most tea I will use a Gaiwan to do short infusion. Like white tea, green tea, even black tea. And the temperature also will change for different teas. Such as white tea, the temperature is approximately 80 ºC-90 ºC,. And with additional a few second is added to the steeping each time.

But for Oolong tea and pu-erh teas, especially the former one, generally, I’d like to choose a Gongfu style (using Sand-Fired teapot) to brew it in the boiling water, and the time also will be very short, I’ll pour the water to the teapot’s surface, after the water on its surface disappeared, then I can enjoy it, very interesting.

however, I also use a glass teapot or porcelain teapot to steep it for a few mins. And the time will not over 5 minutes. The steeping time depend on what kind of tea you steep.

PS: some black tea can be also brew with Sand-Fired teapot, like some Yunnan and keemun tea, which are a type of Gongfu tea.

Back to the flower tea, I’d like to choose some clear glass to steep it for a few mins, in the process, I can also enjoy it expand gradually, it was so pretty beauty.