How Tea Steeping Works

Every tea variety has a standard brewing window that balances extraction of flavor compounds against bitterness. White and green teas are delicate: their leaves are minimally oxidized, so they need cooler water (75–80°C) and short steeps of 2–3 minutes. Oolong and black teas tolerate 90–95°C water and 3–5 minutes, while herbal tisanes — no caffeine — can steep 5–7 minutes at a full boil.

Why Temperature and Time Matter

Hotter water extracts catechins and tannins faster, so temperature and time trade off against each other. The same leaf can produce a sweet, floral cup at 80°C for 2.5 minutes or a bitter one at 95°C for 5. The calculator compares your settings against each tea's recommended range and returns an explicit verdict — under-steeped, optimal, or over-steeped — plus a note when the water itself is off.

Practical Brewing Tips

Use about 4–5 g of loose leaf per 240 ml cup and scale linearly with volume. If you live above sea level, remember your water boils below 100°C — at 1,500 m it boils near 95°C, which is perfect for black tea but still too hot for green. And when in doubt, steep shorter: you can always add time, but you cannot take bitterness back out.