THE PERFECT BREW

Brewing tea can be a subjective exercise.

Some like their tea strong enough to take the coating off a spoon, for others the water barely touches the leaves before being poured.

You can be as relaxed or rigorous as you like, the trick is to experiment a little and find what best suits your taste.

There are many different ways to make tea at home - the common teapot, in your cup with an infuser, or the traditional Asian 'gaiwan', just to name a few.

We've tried them all and sometimes change between them depending on how many people are being served and how much tea needs to be made.  Recently we've come across a new type of tea brewer from Kamjove that we think is just ace!  No mess, no hassles, and perfect for multiple, short steeps of whole leaf tea.  You can find a selection of these brewers in the 'Teawares' section of our online shop, along with some of the little extras that contribute to making the perfect brew.

For steeping times and water temperatures, here are our recommendations for brewing Arakai Estate green and black teas:

(Note:  These amounts and volumes are for drinking from the smaller tasting cups (~50ml).  If you want to make larger cups or for more people, simply scale up the numbers accordingly.  What is most important is the water temperature and steeping times.  In a perfect world we would all have filtered tap or rain water to make our tea, please understand that some town water may have an impact on the quality of your brew).

Arakai Estate Spring Flush & Premium Green Tea

For 1 - 4 people, use approx. 5g of tea (3-4 teaspoons), add 200-250ml of water at around 85-90℃.

(Don't have a temperature-controllable kettle? Just boil 1 L and add 100ml of cool tap water to drop the temperature down to approx. 90℃)

We recommend :

• the first steep to be 30 seconds
• the second - 45 seconds
• the third - 1 minute
• the fourth - 2 minutes
• the fifth - 3 minutes

Arakai Estate Spring Flush & Premium Black Tea

For 1 - 4 people, use approx. 5g of tea (3-4 teaspoons), add 200-250ml of freshly boiled water (96-98℃).
 

We recommend :

• the first steep to be 45 seconds
• the second - 1 minute
• the third - 1.5 minutes
• the fourth - 2 minutes
• the fifth - 3 minutes

If you don't feel like you're getting the best results from these recommendations, please get in touch and we'll see if we can help figure out what could be improved.

Do you have a certain style or method for brewing your tea that you think we should know about?  Feel free to contact us and tell us more about it!