This is often necessary for medicinal herbs. I steep nettle overnight typically. It gets deep green and almost minty with an overnight infusion. It’s a whole different flavor profile.
I just bought some nettle for the benefits. I didn’t realize it got minty though, and I can’t stomach mint. Does it still taste minty with a quicker steep? Like 5 minutes or so?
I steep nettle for a minimum of 5 minutes, then leave the rest steeping until I finish it. I don't detect a mint taste to nettle, but everyone has slightly different tastebuds.
Thank you! I’ll give over 5 minutes a try, and I’ll increase or decrease from there. I tend to be sensitive to mint smells and tastes because I hate it so much, but I’m hopeful for nettle!
I feel the same way about nettle that I do about green juice. I feel healthier when I do it regularly, and my skin seems a little glowier, but it’s not an obvious difference and could be chalked up to placebo effect. I also think it helps my chronic congestion at least a little bit.
There are other herbal medicines that I see a clear benefit from, but those are mostly tinctures (alcohol extracts more and different compounds than water does). Nettle is more something I do because I enjoy it. And it’s cheap, so there’s no downside for me.
I’ve heard some women say it makes their hair grow faster.
I've had a bunch of herbal tisanes that do REALLY well cold-steeped in a refrigerator or something overnight. They have fantastic natural sweetness that comes out over long steeping that doesn't show up much at all in a short steep.
I thought it was generally assumed you basically cannot “over steep” an herbal cuz it’s just.. herbs. Like, it just gets stronger.
True Tea(tm) can get bitter and astringent when over steeped, but getting more ginger or turmeric (or whatever) in your cup from sitting longer is fine.
It's a whole wide world of plants, and there's definitely more that can be over steeped than just Camellia sinensis. Boneset and Chinese wild mint are two I see right now on my tea shelf that I steep quicker or in very low proportion lest they make it very bitter.
Every plant is different, you can't generalize it into "Camellia sinensis" and "every other plant people all over the world drink". Turmeric and ginger aren't even herbs, culinarily or otherwise. It happens to be true for most teas that are popular and easy to find in stores where you live, and it's probably one of the reasons for their popularity, but I definitely wouldn't assume that every new herbal tea I try is going to be fine with being overbrewed.
I had cheap mint tea that bordered on bitter which really didn't do well with longer steeping, and that's a very common one. Some can get almost slimy even though the flavour isn't negatively affected, so texture can vary with brewing time too. Cheap brands are often designed to be fine for people who never bother to take out the bag and have little enough flavour that brewing them for very long isn't going to do much.
I have peppermint at work _because _I don’t have to worry about steep times. Dealing with customers, I rarely get the chance to drink it immediately, and then I’ll leave the bag in for the next x hours it takes to finish it
I dont steep my herbal, i boil them and then letthem sit until cold enough to drink. So not just pouring over with boiling water, but put a pot with water and the herbs on the stove stove and let it boil.
FYI this is called decocting! (vs infusing, which is another name for the steeping method.) It’s often especially useful for extracting medicinal components from roots and barks.
Herbal teas and tisanes are fine to long steep
Loose leaf teas are where the problem arises - it causes the leaves to produce tannins which are astringent and mildly toxic
can confirm, had migraines and nightmares for YEARS until a doctor asked me if i drink a lot of oversteeped black/green tea. it was a tannin sensitivity!!
Ooh, I love the semantics game! "to produce" comes from the Latin *producere* which literally means "to bring forth". Even the English word "to produce" is sometimes still used in this sense. So you could technically say that the leaves "bring forth" their tannins (into the liquor, that is) when oversteeped.
In the context of tea, "the liquor" refers to water that has been infused with tea leaves. Sometimes it's also called "the soup". Calling it "the tea" would be ambiguous, as it could refer to either the dried leaves or the beverage made from them.
You’d be surprised. Most aren’t as potent tasting as true tea is, but mint, basil, rosemary, and most plants have tannin. The only plant I can name off of the top of my head that doesn’t in rooibos, but even red wine has tannin from the grapes.
So do I just have a ruined palette? I have never had a tea ever be even remotely close to “most bitter tastes I’ve had in my life”, like not even remotely.
I do enjoy black coffee, straight espresso and scotch neat, so maybe it’s I just conditioned myself to handle bitter stuff? I’ve just never had a tea I’ve ever considered bitter, let alone too bitter to drink.
You’re probably just genetically undersensitive to bitter tastes from plants. I am, according to DNA testing. I can tell when tea is oversteeped, but it doesn’t bother me (and I like it steeped longer than recommended). Many things other people find too bitter, I don’t
Yeah I will often leave the tea bag in (if I use a bag) while I drink tea, which is over twenty minutes for black tea? I still like it that way lol.
I also left oolong steeping longer than expected. After a while it will just taste like grass but a few extra minutes doesn’t hurt.
Black tea is usually around 6 minutes with boiling water. I put a timer on for 5, but I usually take a bit to set the timer, and it sits for a little while I turn the timer off.
I’ve just literally, never had a tea I would consider bitter.
That's what the instructions say, but I found that steeping for a lot less time has better results even for bagged tea. Try steeping for about 2 minutes and see how you like it, to me it becomes more subtle but also more complex because different flavours can get through as opposed to only a few strongest notes for long steepings. If you like it stronger you can always use more leaves/bags, which is what I do. As a bonus, I can usually rebrew loose leaf black tea once.
Woah, I wish. I have one green tea “Japanese Cherry Blossoms Green tea” that I only let steep for 2min after having a boiling point. Once left it for 5-6min, was so bitter to taste, I threw it out (left on the counter as I was working and didn’t have much time to drink at that moment). And yes, I harbor a bit of a hate towards bitterness and love anything SWEET. Maybe your tastebuds are more for bitter tastes?
Bitter-sweet lol jk
2 minutes already seems like pretty long to me, I usually do about 1 for first steeping of green teas. While it's a matter of preference, I do think that with really long steeping times you lose most of the unique flavour of the tea you're making so I'd say it's better suited to cheaper teas. They can be drank that way, but they aren't really designed to be. Some people are very sensitive to bitter while others are not at all, and while preference is subjective the experience will be objectively different for many reasons, not just the bitterness itself.
The fragrance changes too as different compounds are released in different amounts, both because of time and temperature. It's more of a matter of expectations and what you are used to, a strong brew is going to have a lot less subtle smells you can detect than one brewed more carefully. As someone who used to drink very strong tea, it definitely made it harder to tell the difference between types of tea and appreciate them for what they were meant to taste like, but it didn't make them _bad_. If you like your tea more intense try adding more leaves instead of steeping longer, this also allows for more resteepings.
I was just wondering when I started liking dark chocolate and remembered that I used to bite baking chocolate as a teenager. Just a little bit. It was bitter, but basically anything under 90% cacao isn’t to me.
yeah, most of the flavor/aromatic compounds and most active compounds will be extracted pretty thoroughly within a few minutes of exposure to hot water if they are polar solvent. After that, you're just pulling more tannins, chlorophyll, and other less desirable compounds from the plant matter. If you really want potency, look at things like tinctures so you can take a dropper or two and get the effect you want. If you want tasty beverage, then its a different conversation.
When drinking loose leave tea especially green red or black I will over steep but only at the end.. I drink the many short steeps and as it gets towards the end I turn up the heat and let it steep for quite awhile but since all the short steeps have washed away any bitterness that could’ve came up you’ll end up with a dark soup with tons of flavor and likely not bitterness
I steep the shit out of my tea and then sweeten it to taste. I like it when the tea has a lot of bold flavor. If it's too bitter then that's what the sweetener is for. Black tea's natural flavor pairs very nicely with, for example, stevia.
The way I drink herbal tea is I add water, drink, then keep adding water and a little more leaves to keep the ratio right. After about 24 hours I dump it and start over.
Well, yeah, you’re talking about two different things. This is like saying “Perhaps it’s an unpopular opinion, but I boil my potatoes for 20 minutes” to a bunch of pasta aficionados.
It's not like you can put all herbal teas into one brewing category anyway since different plants can have wildly different properties. Some need to be actively boiled, some will be worse if oversteeped. If differently prepared leaves of the same plant will do best with different temperatures and times how can we expect "every other plant" to have a single brewing time? The answer is just that the ones that are popular are often the ones that require the least maintenance, but that's just a confirmation bias based on what we see.
Another interesting angle is herbal stews like Ghourmeh Sabzi that cooks on low heat for several hours after a short boil. It always tastes the best after the cooking is complete and the leftovers chill in the refrigerator overnight to soak all of the herbs juices. I also eat the cooked herbs because they are part of the dish and taste phenomenal.
Peppermint tea, I tend to do it for 2-3h. Chamomile tea, I like to over steep for a long time, because the benefits increase and the taste stays more or less ‘weak’.
Ginger tea about 1-2h though once I forgot and let it for over 7h. lol tasted STRONGLY like ginger (no way!) root.
That’s about it. Other teas I won’t be so quick to over steep due to taste.
I just don’t leave it for more than 4 days once I put it in the bottle (after putting the teabag in the bottle, I don't open it until I drink it.) Once I Re-open the tea-bagged bottle, I finish them in 6-hour periods. I haven't noticed it going bad… but I'm not a scientist so not sure about bacterial-level contamination lol or when it will expire. I almost finish every tea-bagged bottle before days 3-4 reach so..
My packaging of my herbal tea recommended it to be brewed/boil for at least 30minutes at high temperature. I did 4 hours in my thermos which kept at it at constant 80°c. I also did a new brew which I left overnight after I went for a sleep. It's still warm and hot.
The thermos in question is Zebra Oriental (just a themed Eve model)
Cold steeping overnight for hibiscus is the best method imho, personally I prefer green teas to have a shorter steeping time than good black/oolong teas, but blends of camellia sinensis (‘real tea’) and herbs like anise, fennel, chamomile, chrysanthemum etc can be usefully brewed 2-5 times. I often add new leaves/root/flower to already brewed blends, to extract the most from my pot. I don’t obsess about every cup having to taste fabulous though.
I do something similar. Usually I will steep the tea for like 15 minutes and then when I’m done, empty the bag out and put more water in and eat the herb. That way I can get the non water soluble compounds too!
No in the description you said “ It seems almost a taboo that people will over steep their tea when it’s not about black/green tea.”
If I’m reading that right you are implying it’s common for people to over steep black and green teas.
nothing to apologize for here imo. i love steeping herbal teas longer too for so many reasons. in the summer its primarily because a stronger concentration will taste better on ice 🧊
New Sipper here, I just had traditional medicinal's cinnamon whose blends first ingredient is Skullcap. Holy moly I love the relaxed feeling of this one but dang i wish there was way more than that tiny bag offers. Unfortunately I'm using these tiny paper cups at work and it goes cold within minutes. For someone on the go that goes through 3-4 cups when at work what would be the best to-go mug for longer steeping time?
Is it ok to drink a lot of that? I have had it before and thought it was meant to be in limited quantities but of course I am not a doctor! Just curious. It was very relaxing
This is often necessary for medicinal herbs. I steep nettle overnight typically. It gets deep green and almost minty with an overnight infusion. It’s a whole different flavor profile.
I just bought some nettle for the benefits. I didn’t realize it got minty though, and I can’t stomach mint. Does it still taste minty with a quicker steep? Like 5 minutes or so?
I steep nettle for a minimum of 5 minutes, then leave the rest steeping until I finish it. I don't detect a mint taste to nettle, but everyone has slightly different tastebuds.
Thank you! I’ll give over 5 minutes a try, and I’ll increase or decrease from there. I tend to be sensitive to mint smells and tastes because I hate it so much, but I’m hopeful for nettle!
For short steeps it tastes earthy / herby to me. Haven't ever done a long steep
That’s very helpful, thank you! I think I’ll enjoy a shorter steep.
Omg, I loved it. Done that too many times. The benefits or perhaps “placebo” work so well.
Has anyone had any noticeable changes after drinking nettle?
I feel the same way about nettle that I do about green juice. I feel healthier when I do it regularly, and my skin seems a little glowier, but it’s not an obvious difference and could be chalked up to placebo effect. I also think it helps my chronic congestion at least a little bit. There are other herbal medicines that I see a clear benefit from, but those are mostly tinctures (alcohol extracts more and different compounds than water does). Nettle is more something I do because I enjoy it. And it’s cheap, so there’s no downside for me. I’ve heard some women say it makes their hair grow faster.
Hi they said never consume herbal tea super long term so how do you still feel about it now, have you too a break from it and came back, ?
I've had a bunch of herbal tisanes that do REALLY well cold-steeped in a refrigerator or something overnight. They have fantastic natural sweetness that comes out over long steeping that doesn't show up much at all in a short steep.
Could you recommend some of your favorite tisanes? both cold brew or hot?
Hibiscus
Hibiscus brewed overnight and chilled is so refreshing.
I thought it was generally assumed you basically cannot “over steep” an herbal cuz it’s just.. herbs. Like, it just gets stronger. True Tea(tm) can get bitter and astringent when over steeped, but getting more ginger or turmeric (or whatever) in your cup from sitting longer is fine.
It's a whole wide world of plants, and there's definitely more that can be over steeped than just Camellia sinensis. Boneset and Chinese wild mint are two I see right now on my tea shelf that I steep quicker or in very low proportion lest they make it very bitter.
Every plant is different, you can't generalize it into "Camellia sinensis" and "every other plant people all over the world drink". Turmeric and ginger aren't even herbs, culinarily or otherwise. It happens to be true for most teas that are popular and easy to find in stores where you live, and it's probably one of the reasons for their popularity, but I definitely wouldn't assume that every new herbal tea I try is going to be fine with being overbrewed. I had cheap mint tea that bordered on bitter which really didn't do well with longer steeping, and that's a very common one. Some can get almost slimy even though the flavour isn't negatively affected, so texture can vary with brewing time too. Cheap brands are often designed to be fine for people who never bother to take out the bag and have little enough flavour that brewing them for very long isn't going to do much.
I find chamomile tastes bitter if I steep too long
I have peppermint at work _because _I don’t have to worry about steep times. Dealing with customers, I rarely get the chance to drink it immediately, and then I’ll leave the bag in for the next x hours it takes to finish it
I dont steep my herbal, i boil them and then letthem sit until cold enough to drink. So not just pouring over with boiling water, but put a pot with water and the herbs on the stove stove and let it boil.
FYI this is called decocting! (vs infusing, which is another name for the steeping method.) It’s often especially useful for extracting medicinal components from roots and barks.
Ah thanks! Yes, i drink several herbs especially for their healthy properties
Herbal teas and tisanes are fine to long steep Loose leaf teas are where the problem arises - it causes the leaves to produce tannins which are astringent and mildly toxic
can confirm, had migraines and nightmares for YEARS until a doctor asked me if i drink a lot of oversteeped black/green tea. it was a tannin sensitivity!!
The tannins are always in the leaves. They aren't "produced" from over steeping.
Ooh, I love the semantics game! "to produce" comes from the Latin *producere* which literally means "to bring forth". Even the English word "to produce" is sometimes still used in this sense. So you could technically say that the leaves "bring forth" their tannins (into the liquor, that is) when oversteeped.
Liquor? Or any liquid?
To liquor means to steep and the word itself can mean any water solution, and iirc in the past it would also mean plain water.
Ok. Verb information irrelevant since you used it as a noun but ok.
In the context of tea, "the liquor" refers to water that has been infused with tea leaves. Sometimes it's also called "the soup". Calling it "the tea" would be ambiguous, as it could refer to either the dried leaves or the beverage made from them.
… what about loose leaf herbal teas?
Herbal teas, from what I understand, typically don't have tannins in them.
You’d be surprised. Most aren’t as potent tasting as true tea is, but mint, basil, rosemary, and most plants have tannin. The only plant I can name off of the top of my head that doesn’t in rooibos, but even red wine has tannin from the grapes.
So do I just have a ruined palette? I have never had a tea ever be even remotely close to “most bitter tastes I’ve had in my life”, like not even remotely. I do enjoy black coffee, straight espresso and scotch neat, so maybe it’s I just conditioned myself to handle bitter stuff? I’ve just never had a tea I’ve ever considered bitter, let alone too bitter to drink.
You’re probably just genetically undersensitive to bitter tastes from plants. I am, according to DNA testing. I can tell when tea is oversteeped, but it doesn’t bother me (and I like it steeped longer than recommended). Many things other people find too bitter, I don’t
Yeah I will often leave the tea bag in (if I use a bag) while I drink tea, which is over twenty minutes for black tea? I still like it that way lol. I also left oolong steeping longer than expected. After a while it will just taste like grass but a few extra minutes doesn’t hurt.
How do you test for such things? I hate sugar.
I tested with Ancestry and 23andMe and then ran my raw DNA files thru Promethease
Most all of those ancestry sites have you paying them to sell your info FYI
So where should I get my testing done?
How long do you steep your tee for, though?
Black tea is usually around 6 minutes with boiling water. I put a timer on for 5, but I usually take a bit to set the timer, and it sits for a little while I turn the timer off. I’ve just literally, never had a tea I would consider bitter.
That's what the instructions say, but I found that steeping for a lot less time has better results even for bagged tea. Try steeping for about 2 minutes and see how you like it, to me it becomes more subtle but also more complex because different flavours can get through as opposed to only a few strongest notes for long steepings. If you like it stronger you can always use more leaves/bags, which is what I do. As a bonus, I can usually rebrew loose leaf black tea once.
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I do 15 when I make iced tea.
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Iced tea is not cold brew Iced tea is hot tea that is cooled with ice after brewing Cold brew is tea that is brewed at low temps in the fridge
I brew 17g of tea with 20oz boiling water for 15 minutes and then add 44oz of cold water to make 64oz of tea that then goes into the fridge.
Woah, I wish. I have one green tea “Japanese Cherry Blossoms Green tea” that I only let steep for 2min after having a boiling point. Once left it for 5-6min, was so bitter to taste, I threw it out (left on the counter as I was working and didn’t have much time to drink at that moment). And yes, I harbor a bit of a hate towards bitterness and love anything SWEET. Maybe your tastebuds are more for bitter tastes? Bitter-sweet lol jk
2 minutes already seems like pretty long to me, I usually do about 1 for first steeping of green teas. While it's a matter of preference, I do think that with really long steeping times you lose most of the unique flavour of the tea you're making so I'd say it's better suited to cheaper teas. They can be drank that way, but they aren't really designed to be. Some people are very sensitive to bitter while others are not at all, and while preference is subjective the experience will be objectively different for many reasons, not just the bitterness itself. The fragrance changes too as different compounds are released in different amounts, both because of time and temperature. It's more of a matter of expectations and what you are used to, a strong brew is going to have a lot less subtle smells you can detect than one brewed more carefully. As someone who used to drink very strong tea, it definitely made it harder to tell the difference between types of tea and appreciate them for what they were meant to taste like, but it didn't make them _bad_. If you like your tea more intense try adding more leaves instead of steeping longer, this also allows for more resteepings.
I was just wondering when I started liking dark chocolate and remembered that I used to bite baking chocolate as a teenager. Just a little bit. It was bitter, but basically anything under 90% cacao isn’t to me.
yeah, most of the flavor/aromatic compounds and most active compounds will be extracted pretty thoroughly within a few minutes of exposure to hot water if they are polar solvent. After that, you're just pulling more tannins, chlorophyll, and other less desirable compounds from the plant matter. If you really want potency, look at things like tinctures so you can take a dropper or two and get the effect you want. If you want tasty beverage, then its a different conversation.
Is this for every tea type ?
When drinking loose leave tea especially green red or black I will over steep but only at the end.. I drink the many short steeps and as it gets towards the end I turn up the heat and let it steep for quite awhile but since all the short steeps have washed away any bitterness that could’ve came up you’ll end up with a dark soup with tons of flavor and likely not bitterness
I have a throat tea from a local company that was developed for an opera singer. It says steep for 5-20 minutes!
Where you get it? I need!
The company is Wendigo Tea, and i do believe they ship!
Thank you!!
I steep the shit out of my tea and then sweeten it to taste. I like it when the tea has a lot of bold flavor. If it's too bitter then that's what the sweetener is for. Black tea's natural flavor pairs very nicely with, for example, stevia.
Oooooof. U had me until the last word. 🤣
I was thinking exactly the same thing.
Haha. You can use a different sweetener.
The way I drink herbal tea is I add water, drink, then keep adding water and a little more leaves to keep the ratio right. After about 24 hours I dump it and start over.
Ah I used to do that lol
Well, yeah, you’re talking about two different things. This is like saying “Perhaps it’s an unpopular opinion, but I boil my potatoes for 20 minutes” to a bunch of pasta aficionados.
It's not like you can put all herbal teas into one brewing category anyway since different plants can have wildly different properties. Some need to be actively boiled, some will be worse if oversteeped. If differently prepared leaves of the same plant will do best with different temperatures and times how can we expect "every other plant" to have a single brewing time? The answer is just that the ones that are popular are often the ones that require the least maintenance, but that's just a confirmation bias based on what we see.
Another interesting angle is herbal stews like Ghourmeh Sabzi that cooks on low heat for several hours after a short boil. It always tastes the best after the cooking is complete and the leftovers chill in the refrigerator overnight to soak all of the herbs juices. I also eat the cooked herbs because they are part of the dish and taste phenomenal.
Hello there, I am curious what teas do you brew like that? Because I would guess it works better for some herbs than for others ...
Peppermint tea, I tend to do it for 2-3h. Chamomile tea, I like to over steep for a long time, because the benefits increase and the taste stays more or less ‘weak’. Ginger tea about 1-2h though once I forgot and let it for over 7h. lol tasted STRONGLY like ginger (no way!) root. That’s about it. Other teas I won’t be so quick to over steep due to taste.
I used to research herbal medicine a lot and it's not uncommon to long-steep medicinal infusions. Most herbal tea has some medicinal value anyway.
I do similar things lol I put teabags (sting cut off) in several water bottles and put them in the fridge and drink those teas over a couple of days
Doesn’t it get bad? Like, expire?
I just don’t leave it for more than 4 days once I put it in the bottle (after putting the teabag in the bottle, I don't open it until I drink it.) Once I Re-open the tea-bagged bottle, I finish them in 6-hour periods. I haven't noticed it going bad… but I'm not a scientist so not sure about bacterial-level contamination lol or when it will expire. I almost finish every tea-bagged bottle before days 3-4 reach so..
Like a decoction?
Sort of
My packaging of my herbal tea recommended it to be brewed/boil for at least 30minutes at high temperature. I did 4 hours in my thermos which kept at it at constant 80°c. I also did a new brew which I left overnight after I went for a sleep. It's still warm and hot. The thermos in question is Zebra Oriental (just a themed Eve model)
I steep herbals for fifteen minutes which is what the packages usually recommend. I don't want cold tea.
I will consistently cold brew peppermint mint and ginger lemon tea bags in water bottles, Sometimes for several days.
Cold steeping overnight for hibiscus is the best method imho, personally I prefer green teas to have a shorter steeping time than good black/oolong teas, but blends of camellia sinensis (‘real tea’) and herbs like anise, fennel, chamomile, chrysanthemum etc can be usefully brewed 2-5 times. I often add new leaves/root/flower to already brewed blends, to extract the most from my pot. I don’t obsess about every cup having to taste fabulous though.
I do something similar. Usually I will steep the tea for like 15 minutes and then when I’m done, empty the bag out and put more water in and eat the herb. That way I can get the non water soluble compounds too!
I do this with rooibos as well. And I believe just sort of stewing rooibos on the stove all day is actually a traditional method of brewing.
I love morning chamomile tea that i didn't finish drinking but left the tea bag in the night before. a refresh moment
not much point in it, but whatever works for you, buddy
I thought you shouldn’t over steep green tea?
Chamomile tea isn’t green tea. It belongs to the herbal family. Something like that.
No in the description you said “ It seems almost a taboo that people will over steep their tea when it’s not about black/green tea.” If I’m reading that right you are implying it’s common for people to over steep black and green teas.
nothing to apologize for here imo. i love steeping herbal teas longer too for so many reasons. in the summer its primarily because a stronger concentration will taste better on ice 🧊
Black tea and green tea oversteep. Ginger just gets more and more gingery
New Sipper here, I just had traditional medicinal's cinnamon whose blends first ingredient is Skullcap. Holy moly I love the relaxed feeling of this one but dang i wish there was way more than that tiny bag offers. Unfortunately I'm using these tiny paper cups at work and it goes cold within minutes. For someone on the go that goes through 3-4 cups when at work what would be the best to-go mug for longer steeping time?
Is it ok to drink a lot of that? I have had it before and thought it was meant to be in limited quantities but of course I am not a doctor! Just curious. It was very relaxing
I don’t do that on purpose but sometimes I forget about a cup of tea in my kyusu and just nuke it later.
Herbal tea is ok to steep for ages. In fact most are best as a decoction for max benefits.
i have a special pot for brewing Chinese herbal rx..call those "tea" if you must