Gong Fu Tea Timer

Gong fu brewing puts a lot of leaf into a very small vessel and pulls a series of short infusions out of it instead of one long steep. A 100 ml gaiwan takes roughly 5 g of leaf — about four times the Western ratio — so the first infusion is finished in ten to twenty seconds, and each one after it runs a little longer as the leaf opens up. That escalating series is the ladder this timer counts for you.

Search for your tea and the timer loads its exact ladder: the rinse, every infusion in order, and the water temperature. If you have no tea in mind, start a blank ladder — 10 seconds, plus 5 seconds each round — which is the fallback every gong fu drinker keeps in their head. Press start and the ensō ring closes as the infusion runs down. When it completes you get a chime, and the next infusion queues itself three seconds later; switch auto-advance off if you would rather pour first and start the next one by hand.

The +5 s and −5 s buttons change the current infusion and every infusion after it, which is how corrections actually work at the table: if the third steep came out thin, the fourth, fifth and sixth need the same nudge. Your adjustment is remembered for that tea the next time you open the page. While the timer runs the screen is kept awake and the panel dims to a dark, low-glare face, so the countdown stays readable across a steamy kitchen counter.

Everything happens in your browser. Once the page has loaded the timer needs no network at all — on a plane, in a shop basement, anywhere the signal goes. Nothing you brew is uploaded, no account is involved, and the schedules come from the same curated library of 176 teas that powers the Teafinity app.