Cupping Tea The term cupping is often used to describe the tasting of different teas to determine the tea's taste and quality. Cupping similar teas with each other can help to determine quality when making your purchases. And cupping a tea by itself will help you understand the characteristics of a certain tea. Water Used Your cup of tea is of course 99 per cent water. The quality of the water will seriously affect the flavor of your tea. Use only filtered or bottled water when preparing tea. Your filter system should help remove contaminants but not minerals. Do not use destilled (dead) water. Fill a teapot with water and bring to a boil.. Amount of Tea Used Tea is measured per cup by weight, not by volume. One teaspoon of a White Snow Buds Tea is considerably less tea than one teaspoon of an Assam black tea. Measure out two grams into a six - eight ounce cup and pour the fresh boiling water directly onto the leaves. This would be approximately 1 teaspoon for black tea and 2-3 teasoons for white, green or Oolong teas. Steeping time The steeping process which releases the flavor from the tea leaves is critical. After five minutes of steeping, the acids in the leaf begin to steep into the cup creating a bitter taste. Please note that some teas require a longer steeping time (such as Oolongs) and some teas require a shorter steeping time (two to four minutes for green, white and Darjeelings teas). At the end of the prescribed time, remove the leaves from the tea. Differences White and green teas must be steeped at lower temperatures, approx 160-180. Pour the water from the kettle when the water starts to steam, or wait until at least one minute after removing the boiling teapot from the stove. Also these teas usually take less time to steep. Three to four minutes is the norm. Oolong Teas: Finer oolongs have large unbroken leaves and need more time in the hot water to fully release the flavor.