Green tea timer

How to use the online timer

Two minutes at around 80°C is a reasonable general guide for green tea, considerably cooler and shorter than the near-boiling water and three-or-so minutes that suit black tea. Green tea leaves are less processed and more delicate than black tea leaves, and water straight off a rolling boil scalds them almost immediately, drawing out a grassy bitterness rather than the milder, slightly vegetal or nutty flavour the leaf is actually capable of.

Getting the water to around 80°C without a variable-temperature kettle just means letting freshly boiled water sit for a minute or two before pouring, or adding a small splash of cold water to a full cup straight off the boil. Either approach knocks the temperature down enough to avoid scalding the leaf, and it's a habit worth building for green tea specifically, even if it seems unnecessary for tea in general.

The two-minute mark is shorter than most people expect coming from black tea habits, where three to five minutes is normal. Oversteeping is the more common mistake with green tea, since the margin between a balanced cup and a bitter one is narrower here than with black tea's sturdier, more oxidised leaves — pulling the leaves or bag out right as the timer ends matters more with green tea than it does elsewhere.

Good green tea leaves are often worth a second steep rather than being discarded after the first, typically at a slightly shorter time than the first infusion since the leaf has already opened up and releases flavour faster the second time around. Many higher-quality loose-leaf greens are specifically sold with multiple steeps in mind, and the second cup often tastes noticeably different from the first rather than just weaker.

Japanese green teas such as sencha tend to suit slightly cooler water and a shorter steep than many Chinese greens like longjing or gunpowder, which can handle marginally hotter water without turning bitter — neither rule is absolute, and the details on individual packaging are worth following over any general guide, this one included.

The ratio of leaf to water changes the result about as much as time and temperature do — roughly one to two teaspoons of loose leaf per cup is a common starting point, adjusted up slightly for a stronger cup rather than extending the two minutes further to compensate. Tea bags generally use a coarser, more broken leaf than good loose leaf, which can extract slightly faster, so watching the two minutes closely matters even more when brewing with bags rather than loose tea.

Green tea leaf is more perishable than black tea and loses flavour faster once opened, so storing it in an airtight container away from light and strong odours in the pantry makes a bigger difference to the finished cup than it does with a sturdier black tea. Leaf that's gone stale tends to taste flat and grassy no matter how carefully the temperature and time are managed, which is sometimes mistaken for a brewing mistake rather than an ageing one.