A few things

[cleolinda]

So. Not feeling much better; spent the weekend in a very grim, self-pitying funk. But I'm going back to work ("work") today because you have to move on with life. I think I'm actually going through kind of a post-partum project-completion slump, what with the first e-book finished. The only problem is, I now have to finish the second one, which

Comments

[iamshadow]

Here's a link to a post I made a while ago - How to make Tea for One. Always meant to make another post talking about how to make pot tea, but I haven't yet.

[cleolinda]

Well, these are tea bags (although I do have a tea ball. Well, it's more like a tea star).

[iamshadow]

Teabags don't tend to need to steep as long. How long you steep them depends a lot on personal taste and the variety of tea. Experiment! The tea should be a rich caramel colour, and not overly bitter. If it's bitter, it means you probably over-steeped it. Between two and four minutes, I'd say.

[cleolinda]

Yeah... I only have one sample of each kind, so there's not a lot of room to experiment, is the problem. Because if you think I'm putting down money for more of this stuff, you have another thing coming.

[lyrangalia]

Oh GOD. They're coming to Houston.

Somebody hold me...

[off_coloratura]

A general rule of thumb:

Black tea: boiling water, steep 3 minutes. Green tea, white tea and herbal tea: steaming water, five minutes.

[cleolinda]

Uh... I'm not sure what all this is. Hm. Appears to be two black teas and one herbal/fruit.

[mokeyhokey]

Both black and herbal teas need boiling water, except you're supposed to steep them for five minutes. Green tea you steep for three.

[iamshadow]

What you said!

[apocalypsos]

Sadly, I would totally be willing to take the bullet for Twilight porn. Any embarrassment squick I had over porn died a quick death a looooooong time ago.

[marzikin]

I'm squeeing myself at the thought of advising you on this one.

*ahem*

In order to make good tea, you need to use boilING, not boilED water, straight from the kettle, and if you want to be really picky, you should use the water the first time it's boiled, not the second (and so forth - it's something about boiling away all the oxygen or some such).

If it's teabags, it's advisable to dunk them up and down, rather than/as well as stirring. If it's leaf tea, stir and let steep. Then I'd go on taste. Again, if you want to be picky, warm your cup with a swill of water from the kettle, pour it away, then pour in a little of the tea to taste. : ) Do this until you get to a strength you like. This isn't official advice, but it's what seems logical to me. : ) Different teas need to be steeped for different lengths of time (I've had some herbal teas that need seven, but with typical bog standard tea, I don't even leave it to steep, I swirl, dunk, squeeze, repeat, and take the bag out, and everyone seems to like it... > >)

[cleolinda]

Wow. This is... complicated. And it looks like two blacks and a fruit/herbal, so it's not like this is going to be easy and consistent. Tea is hard, y'all.

[off_coloratura]

Just use boiling water for all three, and let the herbal steep a little longer than the black, till it smells nice. Don't stress too much about it.