Happy Friday Everyone!

I'm often asked this question: What's the best way to steep my tea? Well, let me first start off with there is no "best" way to steep your tea. It's an personal choice. Some believe in gong fu style or "flash" steeping tea which is how it's done traditionally in China and Taiwan but can be time consuming and cumbersome with all of the equipment. It also tends to be a bit of a mess. Then there's the Western method of using a kettle and teapot which most of us are used too. Heating the water to the appropriate temperature, steeping your tea for the right amount of time and pour it out quickly to keep it from over steeping. The last method is one that I grew up with. This tends to be the European way of steeping tea, boil your water, place the loose leaf tea in a small tea pot and pour your water over it. Allow the tea to now steep in the small teapot, once steeped, you mix your steeped tea with the hot water, usually a 2:1 water to tea ratio. It's a personal preference to how strong you'd like your tea. 

Now a few tips for steeping tea at the office. I use a teapot infuser, our Personal Pushtop. It's quick, easy, clean and efficient. A teaspoon of tea is enough usually for 4 or more steeps (depending on the tea). Water is the difficult part since you can't control the temperature. Every office I've worked in, only offers boiling hot water (212) which is perfect for black tea but what about the other types of tea? Oolong tea, Green tea, and White tea, I will pour the boiling water into a cup and allow it to cool off for a couple of minutes. 2 to 3 minutes is typically enough time. Then pour into your infuser and tada! You have a perfect cup of tea. 

Here a couple more tea steeping tips:

• Teaspoon of loose leaf tea is typically enough for multiple infusions, so don't over do it!
• Don't use bottled or filtered water. Trust me, tap water is perfectly fine. 
• If you don't have an infuser, just take a pinch of tea and place it in your cup. It's quick and dirty but works in a bind.
• Remember, it's just loose leaf tea. Take it anyway you like it. =)