Step 1: Use Good Tea

Using good tea almost always means using loose leaf tea. There are some reasonably decent tea bag brands- but we don't know of any great (or even very good tea) that comes in a tea bag.

This first step doesn’t necessarily mean expensive tea. There are some excellent teas that can be had for as little as 15 cents per cup, like our Empire Keemun. But buy your tea from trusted vendors.

Step 2: Use Good Water

If your water tastes good without tea, chances are it will taste good with tea. And the opposite is true also. Steeped tea is over 95% water, so this matters a lot.

A few tips:

• If your water does taste bad out of the tap, most filters available work pretty well: Britta, Pur, etc.
  
  
• Avoid distilled water, your tea will taste flat.
  
  
• Bottled water and spring waters are usually ok, although keep in mind that Evian is naïve spelled backwards.

Step 3: Measure Your Tea

Use 3 grams per 8 ounces water.

For the non-geeky tea drinker, this is about 1 rounded tsp of loose tea. We're talking about a measuring teaspoon, not the teaspoon in your silverware set. That’s why they call it a teaspoon.

If you have an extremely bulky or fluffy tea, we suggest using a heaping tsp or even two teaspoons.

If you have an extremely fine tea, like Classic Iced tea, we would only use 1 level teaspoon.  This is because a fine tea has more weight with less volume; while a bulky tea needs more volume to have the same amount of weight.

Step 4: Use the "Correct" Water Temperature

If you’ve ever had green tea that was bitter, chances are the water was too hot. Water temperature is important–you would never bake a cake 50 degrees hotter or colder than the recipe called for–you should be just as diligent with your tea.

Recommended Water Temperatures for Steeping Different Tea Types.

Tea Image	Tea Type	Recommended Water Temperature
	Black Tea	Boiling (212°F) You can hear and see the bubbles breaking the surface of the water; your kettle should be whistling like crazy.
	Dark Tea (and Puer)	200–210°F Just short of a rolling boil, "fish-eye" bubbles are forming on the surface and the kettle is beginning to hiss.
	Oolong Tea	190–203°F The steam should be strongly coming out of your kettle's spout in a steady column, but bubbles should not be breaking the surface.
	Green Tea (and Yellow)	175–185°F The steam should be coming out of your kettle's spout in a gentle wafting/wisping motion—like steam rising off the frozen surface of a Minnesota lake in February.
	White Tea	Brewing temperatures vary widely. Classic steeping is 175°F, when the very first hints of steam begin to rise from the kettle. We have also found that some white teas develop more flavor when brewed at 180–190°F.

Basically, the hotter the water, the more "flavor chemicals" (including any bitter flavors) you will pull into the steep water.

The instructions above are general guidelines, and there are many exceptions. All TeaSource packages come with steeping suggestions printed on the label. These are simply meant to be starting points. Feel free to experiment and find what suits you best.

Step 5: Time Your Steep

Another reason a green tea might turn bitter is it may have been steeped too long.

Basically steep the tea until it tastes good to you. Here are some very general guidelines (and there are lots of exceptions to this).

One observation: typically the smaller the tea particles (like Classic Iced Tea) the quicker the tea will infuse and steep. And the larger the leaf particles (like Ceylon Lumbini OPA used in our Ceylon Seafarer) the longer the tea will need to steep and infuse.

Step 6: Allow for Full Leaf Expansion

Traditional tea balls are terrible tea-steeping-vessels because they don’t allow enough room for the leaf to expand.

At its most basic, tea is just a dried leaf. As when you re-hydrate any dried food, it will expand, sometimes dramatically so. Tea leaves will expand 2-5 times in size when they’ve re-hydrated after steeping. You have to allow room for that full leaf expansion, or you will not be taking full advantage of what the tea leaves has to offer.

Our suggestions:

• Steep your tea in an infusing basket or cup infuser. They work great and they can fit into individual mugs or teapots.
• Steep your tea in T-sacs (individual, do-it-yourself tea bags). They also work great and are made of unbleached teabag paper. You simply put your own tea in them, and then put them to use on-demand.
• If you must use a tea ball, use the largest honking tea ball you can find, even for a single cup.

The bottom line: use some method that allows the leaf to fully expand during the steeping time.

Steeping loose leaf tea is easy, and when done in a large enough steeping vessel, it is the best way to completely extract everything the leaves have to offer directly into your cup.

Step 7: Stop the Steep

You would never leave a cake in the oven long past the recommended time. The same logic holds true when steeping your tea leaves.

If you leave the leaves in the water too long, almost all teas will become very bitter.

We recommend:

• Steeping your tea in an infusing basket or mug infuser, and then simply removing the whole basket and leaves at the right time.
• Steeping your tea in T-sacs. They're great because you can pre-fill them, steep on-demand, and then simply pull out the t-sac and tea leaves at the same time.
• Steeping your tea directly in a mug or teapot and then pouring and straining the steeped tea into a second pot or cup when the time comes.

Using a steeping device or process that allows you to separate the leaves from the liquid at the right time is essential.

Thanks for joining us on our Seven Steps to Great Tea series. We hope this helps!