Did you know that you can re-steep tea? You can! Let's learn how to make every serving of tea last even longer!
The first thing that is important about re-steeping tea is to follow the directions on your first infusion, or your first steep. If you oversteep your first infusion, your following infusions will not come out how you want them to. Pay close attention to your tea-to-water ratio, as well as your steep time. If you are planning on enjoying more than one infusion from one serving of tea, begin with less time than more time.
The second important thing is to be aware of where you are saving your wet leaves. Depending on your tea infuser, try to let your leaves breathe a little when they are waiting to be steeped again. If I am using a tea ball, I will set the tea ball in a little saucer or bowl next to my tea kettle. I like using a basket tea infuser for re-steeping tea because I can use the lid as a coaster and the leaves are able to breathe.
The last thing to be aware of for re-steeping is how long you are reusing tea leaves for. Tea can be re-steeped as many times as there is still flavor. For some teas that is only one or two infusions, for others, that can be five or six times. As someone who drinks five or six cups of tea a day, that works for me but if you are only wanting one or two cups a day, you are not going to want to steep used tea leaves after 10 hours of them being used. If you re-steep tea after a whole day, the tea can taste bad and can even become bad for you. If you are not planning on having multiple cups a day, re-steeping might not be for you.
Here is an example of how to re-steep successfully:
I decided to make myself a cup of Blessed By Friends Green Tea blend. I know that I would like to have at least two cups of tea when I am doing my quiet time so I look at my directions and see that this specific tea can be steeped for 2-3 minutes. If I wanted a stronger, single cup of tea, I would let my tea steep for 3 minutes. But since I want to make this one serving stretch a little longer, I am going to steep this one serving of tea only for 2 minutes.
I let my leaves steep and instead of throwing my tea leaves away, I will set them aside and uncovered them if possible. I will set them by my tea kettle to remind myself that I can make myself a second cup. After I enjoy my cup of tea, I then will re-steep the same leaves as before, this time for either 2.5 or 3 minutes.
After my second cup of tea, I will then throw out my tea leaves, or compost them.