Making large quantities of tea with bags
Say I'm making a litre of tea, for ice tea, would it be better to steep one bag for longer or several bags (five, I guess, given a cup is around 200ml) for the time stated on the box (a few minutes)?
I've read that the longer you steep, the more tannins and caffeine is released into the tea, and so the more bitter it will become. As such, I guess more bags would be preferable, as ice tea is usually sweet; but if one is optimising for caffeine content, longer with additional sweeter might be better. I appreciate this is subjective, but am I on the right track?
(n.b., Lady Grey tea, if it makes a difference.)
Best Answer
Every black tea bag contains around 25-110 mg of caffeine per serving. If you want more caffeine and tannins, of course 5 tea bags would contain more caffeine than a single bag. The reasons are:
When you use a tea bag, caffeine, tannins diffuse out the tea leaves into the water. The longer you leave the tea bag/leaves in the water, the closer to equilibrium you will get. But if one tea bag, there would be limited amount of caffeine, tannins.
Besides, five tea bags would mean caffeine, tannins diffuse in parallel in the hot water. Diffusion rate depends on concentration as well as temperature of water as this paper shows.
The diffusion of these caffeine, tannins will be fastest in the first few minutes, where the concentration gradient between water (no caffeine, tannins) and the tea leaves (full of caffeine, tannins) are the steepest, as well as highest temperature.
While after optimum time, the slower the diffusion of caffeine and tannins into the water, because the concentration of the water(or maybe now tea) and the tea leaves are similar, and lower temperature. ie. the amount of caffeine, tannins that could be diffuse out the teabag is not much after long.
But if you add hot water to the tea bag again, you would find the teabag has flavor because hot temperature and steepest concentration happens again.
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Quick Answer about "Making large quantities of tea with bags"
For large quantities, prepare concentrate as follows: Bring one quart of cold water to a roiling boil. Remove from heat and add 8-10 teabags per quart of brewed tea as desired. Steep 3-5 minutes and pour over remaining cold water or ice cubes.How do you make tea for a lot of people?
Hot Brewing Iced TeaHow do you make large amounts of loose leaf tea?
One cup per bag is a good rule of thumb. Depending on your tastes as well as the type and quality of the tea, you could make 1-2 cups per teabag. Avoid steeping too long or else the tea will become bitter, particularly for black teas.How much tea can a bag make?
General rule of thumb is one tea bag per cup. A gallon is 16 cups, which is equal to 128 ounces. A teabag contains 2 to 3 grams of tea. It takes approximately 28 grams of tea to make a gallon, so you would need 9-14 standard teabags for a gallon of tea, depending on how strong you like it.How you've been making tea WRONG your entire life - BBC
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