I'm not a star trek nerd but a tea nerd, and if I'm not mistaken Picard drinks earl grey: You generally boil black tea of course that depends on the tea but yeah 80c range is quite low for black. Depending on the green and the time of brew the tempature can be anywhere from room temp to 90c it just depends on many different factors, like freshness or how the tea plant is grown and how those leaves are treated. Generally with Japanese greens you use low temp water, with fresh Chinese green teas you can use near boiling water.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

As a rule of thumb westeners tend to brew tea too hot, don't be afraid of messing around with lower temperatures. Doubly so if you're living in the lowlands, in mountainous regions where the tea grows people might be using boiling water but that doesn't mean 100C: In the Andes, where potatoes are from, they're doing some freezing and whatnot processing to prepare them instead of boiling. Wouldn't really work because you can't get water hotter than 80-85C there.

Also cold brewed, as in refrigerator brewed, Earl Grey is one of my favourites in summer. Needs the right base tea though mine's a decent Cylon. Couple of hours at least, better overnight, practically impossible to steep too long.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I know that cold brew is a thing of black teas, its just that it takes a while to do black cold brews, compared to gyokuro which you can brew it room temp under a min or so if you're using higher ratio of tea to water compared to western brewing.

But yes like I mentioned you can do green tea near boiling its just it depends heavily on where its from, how its grown, how its treated and how fresh it is. The less fresh green tea is, the colder the water you should be using.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

90 times the light speed? holy moly thats fast for tea.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yes. I was borrowing, actually from Starbucks standard: Black teas are steeped at boiling or near boiling, but then are cooled to 80℃ when served, and the TNG era Replicator seems smart enough create a cup of steeped tea at drinking temperature. Though yes, when someone orders a pot, it's water heated to steeping temperature.

ETA I didn't know the difference between Chinese and Japanese green teas! TIL!