How to brew tea: amount, temperature and steeping time for every kind

As a rule of thumb, use 2 to 3 g of loose tea for a 200 ml cup, so 10 to 15 g for a litre. Go easy with delicate green and white teas, and be a little more generous with strong black tea and with herbal and fruit tea.

Amount and steeping time work differently, though. More leaves make the whole cup more concentrated, in the same balance: for strong tea use about half as much again, for light tea about 40 % less. The steeping time changes the balance. Caffeine, aroma and the sweet amino acids dissolve in the first one to three minutes, tannins keep coming until about six to eight minutes. So tea steeped briefly tastes fresh and light, longer fuller and more astringent, and after that only more bitter. Herbal and fruit teas have few tannins: for them, longer mostly means stronger.

Black tea takes boiling or nearly boiling water. Let it steep for 2 to 5 minutes: after a short time it tastes mild, and the longer it steeps, the stronger and more bitter it gets.

Boiling water quickly makes green tea bitter. So let the water cool for a few minutes, to about 70 to 85 °C, and steep the tea for just 1 to 3 minutes. White tea likes it similar, about 75 to 80 °C for 2 to 4 minutes.

Oolong is partly oxidised and tastes somewhere between green and black tea; its leaves are often rolled into small balls. It takes a little more leaf, about 3 g for 200 ml, water at 85 to 93 °C and 2.5 to 4.5 minutes.

Good green and white teas can be steeped about three times, oolong even four. Steep each further infusion about 45 seconds longer than the one before, as the leaves give less each time. Black tea gives nearly everything in the first infusion, and so do herbal tea and rooibos.

Herbal and fruit teas and rooibos don't come from the tea plant. They take water at a rolling boil and long steeping times, usually five minutes or more.

Matcha is finely ground green tea that isn't steeped but whisked into the water, traditionally with a bamboo whisk. For a bowl of thin matcha, called usucha, use about 2 g of powder and 65 to 70 ml of water at 70 to 80 °C. Koicha, thick matcha, takes about twice the powder in roughly half the water.

For iced tea, brew the tea twice as strong as usual, with double the amount of tea, and pour it straight over the same weight of ice. The ice chills the tea at once and dilutes it to normal strength. It works with any tea, herbal and fruit tea included.

For cold brew, put about 12 g of tea in a litre of cold water and let it steep in the fridge: green tea about 3 hours, white tea and oolong 7.5 to 8 hours, black tea about 10. Cold brewed tea tastes milder and hardly bitter.

Take care with herbal and fruit tea and rooibos: they are only dried, not heated, and can carry germs that only boiling water kills. Consumer advice is to pour on boiling water, steep at least five minutes and then let them cool. Only cold brew teas sold for cold brewing; fruit and herbal tea then take about 10 hours, rooibos about 8.