Coming to the App Store

Gong fu tea,
one steep at a time.

A brewing timer for iPhone that already knows your tea. 74 of them — water temperature, leaf-to-water ratio, whether to rinse, and a separate countdown for every infusion in the session.

One email when it ships. Nothing else, ever.

Steaper counting down the third of four infusions of Gyokuro, the vessel filling as the steep runs

teas, researched: 74teas, researched
growing countries: 8growing countries
tea families: 6tea families
network requests: 0network requests

Brewing parameters

The numbers come with the tea

Every tea carries its own water temperature, its own grams-per-100 ml ratio, and its own rinse rule. Set your vessel size once and the dose is worked out for you — 100 ml gaiwan, 150 ml pot, whatever you actually brew in.

Gyokuro wants 55 °C. Da Hong Pao wants a rolling boil and a five-second rinse first. The app knows which is which so you don’t have to keep a note on your phone.

Gyokuro's detail screen: 55°C, a vessel-volume stepper set to 100 ml, and a recommended dose of 6.0 g

Steep by steep

A line about what just changed

A gong fu session is four to eight short infusions, and the cup is different every time. Steaper writes a line for each one — what the second pour brings that the first didn’t, where the roast gives way to honey, when the tea is telling you it’s done.

The countdown runs off the wall clock, so locking your phone or taking a call mid-steep doesn’t cost you the infusion. A gong sounds when time is up, pitched a little differently for each steep.

A finished steep showing the caption 'A dense sweetness, held low.' beneath the filled vessel

Reference

Where the tea came from, and why it’s called that

Each tea opens with a few hundred words that are worth reading: the student and the red robe, the three weeks gyokuro spends under shade cloth, why nobody drinks from the six original bushes on the Wuyi cliff any more.

Plus the Chinese characters, the literal meaning, the export name, the names your vendor might use instead, and where in the world it grows. The whole library is on this site if you want to read it before you download anything.

Da Hong Pao's detail screen with the story of the mother bushes on the Wuyi cliffs

On the Lock Screen

Put the phone down

The running steep appears as a Live Activity on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, so the timer is readable from across the table without unlocking anything. A Home Screen widget is included too.

Private by construction

It never talks to a server

There is no account, no sign-in, no analytics and no network code in the app at all. Your favourites live on your device and nowhere else, which is also why the whole thing works at 11,000 metres. The privacy policy is short for the same reason.

The library

74 teas, six families

Browse all 74 teas →

“The first cup moistens my lips and throat. The second shatters my loneliness.”

— Lu Tong, Seven Cups of Tea

Steaper is coming to iPhone

Leave an address and you’ll hear from us once, on the day it lands on the App Store.

Questions in the meantime: hello@steaper.com

Gong fu tea,one steep at a time.