I have to take issue with your recommendation for a rigid steep time, especially with green and white teas. While traveling in China I noticed that almost everyone leaves their house in the morning with a large container of tea (about 16 ounces). They will put loose tea leaves in the container and fill it up with hot water. The loose leaves stay in the container till the end of the day! As they drink the tea and the water level goes down, they keep adding hot water throughout the day as necessary. Some people will add more tea leaves too, but they usually don’t take out any of the leaves. This approach has the added advantage of providing a smaller and smaller dose of caffeine as the day goes on. Anyway, I wonder if the rigid steep times may have come from the use of tea bags and dark teas where you can end up with a bitter drink from steeping too long. I steep my green and white teas all day and it seems weird to me that you are timing your tea and pulling out the leaves after four or five minutes. Too much thinking!

We’re going to address this in an upcoming episode. I think the guidelines are good for beginning drinkers, but I agree with your comment, especially for white teas. We’re having a white tea episode soon that will cover the resteeping/long steep time that white teas and some green teas can handle.

Thanks for the comment! Sorry it took so long to respond.