How to brew herbal tea: temperature, quantity and time

Almost everyone brews herbal tea using the rules for actual tea, and those rules are wrong for it. That is the main reason a cup of chamomile so often tastes like warm water.

The one difference that changes everything

Black, green, white and oolong tea all come from one plant, Camellia sinensis, and that plant is full of tannins. Tannins are what make real tea turn harsh and astringent when the water is too hot or the steep runs long. Every rule you have absorbed about tea — take the kettle off early, two minutes and no more, never squeeze the bag — exists to manage tannins.

Herbal tea is not that plant. Rooibos, honeybush, chamomile, peppermint, hibiscus, ginger, moringa and fruit pieces are unrelated botanically and carry far less of the compounds that punish a long steep.

So the tea rules do not apply, and following them is why the cup comes out thin.

Temperature: a full boil, and no thermometer

Bring the water to a rolling boil and pour it straight over the leaves. That is the whole instruction. You cannot scorch rooibos the way you can scorch green tea, so the careful business of taking the kettle off at 175°F is not something you need to think about with anything we sell.

Pour the water onto the leaves rather than dropping the leaves into a full cup. The leaves need to be hit by the water to open up and start releasing their oils.

Quantity: one teaspoon per eight ounces, adjusted for bulk

A teaspoon of loose leaf per eight ounces of water is the starting point, and one bag per mug if you are using bags. The adjustment worth making is for how densely the blend packs:

• Fluffy blends — whole chamomile flowers, big mint leaves, dried fruit pieces — take a heaped spoon. They occupy a lot of volume for very little weight.
• Dense blends — rooibos, cut ginger, turmeric, finely cut herbs — take a level one.

Weak herbal tea is almost always under-dosed rather than under-steeped. If a cup disappoints, add more leaf before you add more time.

Time: four to seven minutes, and longer is usually fine

Four to seven minutes suits most herbal blends. Rooibos and heavier root blends are happy at seven to ten. If you walk away and come back at fifteen, you will very likely find it perfectly drinkable, which is not something you could do with a cup of green tea.

Forgiving is not the same as indestructible. Two exceptions are worth knowing: chamomile does turn bitter if you push it far past ten minutes, and hibiscus gets sharply tart rather than bitter — some people steep it longer on purpose for exactly that reason.

Give the leaves room

This is the most common equipment mistake. Dried herbs expand a great deal in hot water, and a small mesh ball packed tight gives them nowhere to go. Water then runs around the outside of a solid clump instead of through it, and you get a weak cup from a generous spoonful.

Use a basket infuser that fills no more than half, or a pot, or simply drop the leaves loose into a mug and strain as you pour. Tea bags have the same problem in a milder form, which is part of why pyramid bags exist.

A second steep

Most loose herbal blends will give a second cup, lighter than the first. Rooibos does this particularly well. Use the leaves the same day, steep a little longer, and treat it as a different drink rather than a repeat of the first one.

Iced, which is a different method

Do not brew hot and pour it over ice — you dilute it to nothing. Either brew at double strength and then pour over ice, or cold brew: the same leaf, cold water, in the fridge overnight. Cold brewing takes eight to twelve hours and produces a rounder, less tannic drink. Fruit and hibiscus blends are the ones worth doing this way. Our Iced shelf is built around them.

Where the per-tea instructions live

Every product page carries a "How to brew" line for that specific blend, because the general rules above will not tell you that a particular chai wants ten minutes. Start there and adjust.

If you want somewhere to begin: Sleep for the evening, Cutting caffeine if you are replacing coffee, or everything we stock.