Three ways to brew Red tea
Red tea is the category where the Western method is genuinely competitive, because it is the method the tea was traded and drunk under for two centuries.
Gongfu works and gives you more steeps, but the leaf has less to reveal across them than an oolong does.
Grandpa style is possible but unusual, because red tea at a low ratio tends to taste thin rather than sweet.
The dose is the thing that decides. Five grams per 200 millilitres for a pot, or 5 grams per 120 millilitres for a gaiwan.
All three methods work. The differences are smaller here than in any other category.
Water at 95 rather than 100 is a small improvement for all three methods. It costs thirty seconds of waiting after the kettle switches off.
Gongfu: small pot, high leaf, short pours
Five grams in a 120 millilitre gaiwan, water at 95 degrees, 15 seconds for the first steep, then add five seconds per round.
It will run six or seven steeps, and the third and fourth are usually the best of them.
The advantage over a pot is that you can stop. A gaiwan lets you decant the moment the tea is right, which a pot with a basket does not.
Use porcelain. Clay is fine for the malty origins such as Keemun and Assam, but it blunts the delicate ones such as Darjeeling first flush.
This is the method to use when you want to taste the origin rather than drink a mug of something warm.
Keep the steeps short. Red tea gives up most of what it has in the first minute, and longer steeps only add astringency.
Western: a normal teapot, longer steep
Five grams in 200 millilitres at 95 degrees for four minutes, then lift the leaf out. That is the standard and it is hard to improve on.
The one rule that matters more than any other: remove the leaf when the time is up. Red tea left in a pot is the most common cause of a bad cup.
A pot with a removable basket is the practical tool. A tea cosy to keep it warm is not a decoration.
Broken grades and blends suit this method better than whole leaf, because they give up everything they have inside four minutes.
For iced red tea, brew double strength and pour it over ice. Ten grams in 500 millilitres, four minutes, into a jug of ice.
Hard water above about 150 parts per million flattens the cup. A filter jug is a cheaper fix than buying better tea.
Grandpa: leaf in the cup
Grandpa style is the weakest of the three for red tea, and it is worth saying why.
Red tea extracts fast and completely. At a low ratio it gives you colour and a little flavour, and then it stops.
If you want to try it, use 3 grams in 300 millilitres at 95 degrees, and accept that the second glass will be weaker than the first.
It suits a strong, malty breakfast blend better than a delicate single origin, which simply disappears.
The honest advice is to use one of the other two methods and make a second pot later.
It is worth trying once, though, because it shows you what the tea tastes like without the distraction of a strong brew.
Which to choose
For everyday drinking, use the Western method. It is what red tea is designed for and it asks very little of you.
For tasting a single origin, use gongfu. Six steeps will tell you more about a Darjeeling than one mug will.
Skip grandpa style unless you are using a strong blend and do not mind a light cup.
Fix the dose first, then the time. Five grams per 200 millilitres is the anchor, and everything else follows from it.
And remove the leaf. Whichever method you use, that is the one habit that prevents almost every failure with red tea.
If you drink red tea with milk, brew it strong. Ten grams in 500 millilitres for four minutes survives the milk, and a weak brew does not.
Keep a note of the dose that worked for each tea. Red tea is the category where that single habit pays off fastest, because the variables are few.