I am trying the Makaibari white tea (my taste runs more along the traditional Darjeeling 2nd flush tea).
I am using liberal interpretation of "tablespoon" to infuse with more leaves, at a lower than boiling temp with shorter brewing time (2 min) to begin with, gradually increasing the steeping time for 2nd and 3rd steeping (up to 4 min).
How many uses of the leaves do you folks get out such teas? Is three or
Aloke
I use a liberal teaspoon out of a measuring set, not just some flatware out of the drawer with the forks and knive.
Some teas come as larger pieces or even whole leaves, and that can add bulk, so that a given volume of tea weighs less that than what comes as smaller broken pieces.
I steep between 1 1/2 and 2 minutes or so, with water at maybe 170 degrees.
That's it. I do not reuse the leaves further than that. I tried it once and found that it started getting astringent.
For darker teas I often am able to select broken teas, so a level teaspoon works well. I use higher temperatures and sometimes steep longer, depending upon how finely broken the tea is.
I have lately found that the Upton Tea Company perfectly suits me. They offer samples, have a huge selection, offer good advice, ship really quickly, and their prices are very low.
I suppose I should try reusing some teas, but I'm loathe to experiment when I like the first steeping so well, and the tea is not terribly expensive. A cup of tea is less than a can of Coke or Pepsi, and doesn't come along with 12 teaspoons of sugar to give you diabetes, rot your teeth, and make you fat. Tea would need to be 100s of dollars a cup befor it catches up with HFCS-laced flavored carbonic acid.in terms of costing you medical expenses later in life.
Add in the extra benfits from the antioxidants in tea, and you're practcally being paid to drink it.:-)
I just finished a nice cup of Yunnan. Very tasty, and just the thing before bed IMO. (I also often drink Roobois or Honeybush before bed.) (I don't reuse any of these either.)
I'd be willing to try reusing tea if someone could make a good case for doing so. :-)
I once did steepings of 10 times on a white tea before I threw the leaf away. Tenth time, I still got a flavored cup of something in a pretty liquid. I can't remember which white tea it was. If I were you, I'd do my own experimentation. Toci
White tea and green tea won't stand up to too many brewings. I usually can get 3 or 4 with flavor and after that just continue to drink it for the purpose of imbibing water. White tea is pretty light anyway so shouldn't be able to expect too many brews out of it.
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