Brewing Red tea without a kitchen
Red tea, which most of the English speaking world calls black tea, is the easiest category to brew without a kitchen. It wants boiling water, it tolerates a long steep better than most, and it is forgiving of a mug.
This is the tea to keep at work if you drink it with milk, because it is the only category that genuinely improves from being brewed strong.
Three grams in a mug, water off the boil, three minutes, and lift the leaf out. That is the recipe, and it works with whatever hot water source you have.
The one thing to watch is that red tea extracts fast and completely. Left too long it goes tannic and drying, which is a different failure from green tea’s bitterness but no more pleasant.
A lid on the mug helps. Red tea loses its aroma quickly as it cools, and a covered mug keeps both the heat and the smell where you want them.
If your office only has a hot water tap that is not quite boiling, red tea will still work. It is the category that least cares about the exact number.
The office setup
The office setup is a mug, a basket infuser, a lid, and a tin. Nothing else is needed, and there is no temperature problem to solve.
Use a basket you can lift out. Red tea is the category where leaving the leaf in is most damaging, because it keeps extracting and turns the last third of the mug undrinkable.
Pre-portion into 3 gram packets, or 4 grams if you take milk. The extra leaf gives the body that milk dilutes, and it is the one adjustment worth making.
If you drink several cups a day, a small pot is better than a mug. One brewing session, several cups, and the leaf comes out once.
Keep the tin away from steam. Red tea is the most likely category to be stored next to a kettle or a dishwasher, and that is exactly where it goes soft and stale.
And do not bother with a thermometer. Red tea wants hot, and anything from a boiling kettle is correct.
On the road
On the road, red tea is the safest choice there is. Every hotel kettle, every service station, every aeroplane galley will give you water hot enough.
A flask works well, though it is worth decanting after 20 minutes or so. Red tea left in a thermos for hours turns thick and tannic, which milk will hide but sugar will not fix.
For a long journey, brew it stronger than usual and top up with hot water rather than leaving the leaf in. That gives you several cups from one dose without the stewed flavour.
Cold brewing red tea is possible and underrated. Four grams in 500 millilitres of cold water for eight hours gives a smooth, sweet, almost fruity drink with no bitterness at all.
Pack it in a tin or a sealed bag. Red tea survives being knocked about, but it will pick up the smell of a suitcase if it is loose.
One practical advantage of red tea when travelling: it is the only category where a tea bag is an acceptable substitute. A decent bagged red tea beats no tea, and beats a badly brewed delicate green.
What to skip
Skip leaving the leaf in the mug. This is the mistake that ruins more red tea at work than any other, and it is entirely avoidable with a basket.
Skip brewing it in a paper cup without a lid. Red tea cools fast, and once it drops below about 60 degrees the aroma is gone and the tannins dominate.
Skip over-dosing in the hope of a stronger cup. Past about 4 grams in 250 millilitres you get tannin rather than strength, and the result is drying rather than brisk.
Skip the shared office tea bags if you can. They are usually broken-grade leaf of no particular age, and they will not show you what red tea tastes like.
And skip the assumption that red tea needs boiling water to be correct. Water off the boil, around 95 degrees, is slightly better for the delicate origins and no worse for the malty ones.
The only thing worth carrying is a basket you can lift out. That single item fixes the most common problem with red tea everywhere.