Johan Lundström

Does the 5 minute infusion really work? Most recipes have a full bottle infusing for 2 hours, but is five minutes enough for a single serving? Also, how much tea to use for a single serving? As much as if I was making a regular cup of Earl Grey?

I did 10 minutes - it absolutely works better than the crazy long steeping times you find online, that extract far too many tannins. 5 minutes should be perfectly fine.

I believe the 2-8 hours is taken from cold-brewing tea in water, but water and 80-proof gin have different qualities.

I used my go-to Brokers Gin.

Different tea bags may vary, but I'd stick with using about 4 tea bags for a full bottle of gin, and letting it steep for about 2 hours before checking in on it to see how it tastes (I've seen elsewhere to not go further than 8 hours of steeping). Using 10 tea bags is quite a lot - you can always add more and adjust as you go, and not so much the other way around (unless you have more bottles of gin around to water it down! Alternatively, you can always cut open the tea bags if you really want to get exacting with it - even then, 4 tablespoons of tea to steep for 2 hours (and up to 8 hours) will do it!

I would not steep it for over 15 minutes - you get too many tannins.

(Yes, I tried two hours, and quickly decided not to after that.)