Oversteeping

Oversteeping is the act of steeping tea for far longer than you usually would, with the express purpose of imbuing it with sterility that is then conferred upon the drinker.

How long tea must be oversteeped to be considered ‘ready’ is highly dependent on the type of tea, but usually, the time is somewhere between 3 and 30 days. There are, however, exceptions to this. For instance, the artificial Orkney Earl Black tea of Nuck’s creation is exceptionally prone to oversteeping: having perfected both the plant and his steeping procedure over the course of centuries, Nuck discovered that his tea must steep for a little over 7 minutes (exactly 7.052,111,401,053,677,642,8 minutes, to be precise) to become ready for consumption. Orkney tea in particular is so volatile that even oversteeping it by the tiniest amount can render it almost unfit for consumption even to high-ranking C.H.E.S. members.

Over-oversteeping

Oversteeping tea for too long can increase the sterility contained in the tea even more, but it also causes the sterility to start ‘leaking’ out of the tea, thus reducing the amount of sterility absorbed by the drinker compared to properly oversteeped tea. Why this happens is ill-understood, though Nuck tends to speak of it as a matter of fact.

That said, it is actually possible to oversteep tea for longer than normal while still achieving favourable results, but the procedure is rather involved and more ritualistic and traditional than practical in nature—even properly over-oversteeped tea cannot compare in quality to regular, oversteeped Orkney tea.