Brewing-method depth, one landing page · steeped.app
Teafinity vs Steeped
Choose Steeped if its five brewing methods and parameter calculator match how you already brew and you like the craft of the design. Choose Teafinity if you want the parameters published per tea rather than per method — 176 teas with Western and Gong Fu schedules, photo identification and a library in your language.
The short version
- Steeped takes brewing methods seriously — five of them, plus a parameter calculator. That is a more thoughtful starting point than most tea apps manage.
- It is also, at the time of writing, essentially a one-page website. The depth is described rather than shown, so most of this comparison table reads "not stated" — a fact about their marketing, not a verdict on their app.
- Teafinity publishes everything up front: every tea's numbers are on this website, free, before you install.
Teafinity vs Steeped, row by row
| Feature | Teafinity | Steeped |
|---|---|---|
| Tea database | 176 core teas plus 80 seasonal, each with its own brewing data Browse the library Track what you own | No published tea count; the landing page describes brewing methods rather than a catalogue |
| AI identification | Yes — point the camera at leaves or packaging, answer in about 2 seconds How the tea ID works | Not advertised on their site |
| Timer (multi-infusion?) | Yes — a Western timer and a full Gong Fu ladder that counts each infusion separately How the timer works | Five brewing methods and a parameter calculator, described on the landing page but never exposed as browsable pages |
| Journal | Yes — completed steeps are logged automatically, with favourites and a collection How the journal works | Not documented on the landing page |
| Languages | English, German, French, Dutch, Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese, each a separate app experience | English landing page; the team is based in Karlsruhe, Germany |
| Platforms | iPhone (with a home-screen widget and an Apple Watch companion) and Android | Not stated on the single landing page |
| Price model | Free tier with 30 full teas and the timer · $29.99/year after a 3-day free trial · $3.99/week · one-time lifetime option See exactly what's free | Not stated on the landing page |
What Steeped publishes on its own site, checked August 2026. “Not published” means we could not verify it from their pages — not that the feature is missing.
teafinity.app
Where Steeped is genuinely better
Brewing-method depth is the right obsession. Five distinct methods with a parameter calculator behind them is a more serious model of brewing than "pick a tea type, get one number". Most tea apps flatten Western, Gong Fu, cold brew and grandpa style into a single timer; Steeped does not, and that deserves credit.
The craft shows. It is a considered, restrained piece of design from a small German team, and it does not feel assembled from a template.
They are not overclaiming. No AI badge, no inflated tea count, no invented rating. In this category that is rarer than it should be.
Where Teafinity is different
Parameters per tea, not only per method
A method calculator tells you how to brew a category. Teafinity holds the numbers for each individual tea — a sencha and a gyokuro are both "Japanese green", and they want 70 °C and 60 °C respectively. All 176 sets of numbers are published on this site, free, so you can check our work before installing anything.
The Gong Fu ladder is data, not a formula
Teafinity's Gong Fu schedules are per-tea sequences — rinse, then five to eleven infusions with their own times — rather than a rule applied to a category. You can see the whole thing in the gongfu brewing chart or run it in the free web timer.
Localized copy, indexable pages
Teafinity is fully localized, and every tea, tool and chart is a real page on this website. Steeped keeps its depth inside a single landing page, which means a search for a specific tea's steeping time never finds them. That is their choice; we made the opposite one on purpose.
Which one should you install?
Choose Steeped if…
- The five brewing methods map cleanly onto how you already brew.
- You value restraint and a considered interface over feature count.
- You are comfortable evaluating an app from its store listing rather than its website.
Choose Teafinity if…
- You want the exact parameters for a specific named tea, not for its category.
- You want the Gong Fu ladder as data — a real per-tea sequence you can follow.
- You want the app in German, French, Dutch, Japanese, Korean or Chinese.
Steeped and Teafinity are the two apps in this comparison that agree on the important thing: brewing parameters are worth getting right. We differ on where those parameters should live. Theirs live inside the app; ours live on the open web, free, whether or not you ever install us.
How we put these tables together
Every competitor cell describes what that company publishes on its own website, checked in August 2026. Where a cell says not published, not documented or not stated, it means exactly that — we could not verify it from their own pages — and never that the feature is missing. Apps change; landing pages change more slowly.
We do not install competitors, time their alarms and write up the results. That kind of comparison ages badly and tends to flatter whoever wrote it. We compare published claims against published claims, and we publish ours in full — all 176 teas, with their parameters, are on this website for free.
Teafinity's own figures come from the app itself: 176 core teas plus 80 seasonal, 30 of them free forever, 4.9★ from 33 ratings on the App Store. Our Android rating is lower than our iOS rating, and we explain why on the support page rather than hiding it here.
Teafinity times every infusion for you
The app loads this tea's exact schedule, rings even in your pocket, and logs every session — free on iPhone and Android.
The other comparisons
App names and trademarks belong to their respective owners. This page is written and published by the makers of Teafinity and is, unavoidably, not a neutral source — which is why every competitor section starts with what they do better.