TeaBuddy
A gongfu tea journal that thinks in sessions, not cups
Most tea apps assume one mug and one steep. TeaBuddy brews gongfu first: a rinse, then eight short infusions, each with its own note. It keeps the scrapbook soul of a paper journal while adding the things paper can't do.
$5 once on the App Store · from $10/year on the web · 7-day free trial
What you get
- Steep-by-steep session log, not one note per cup
- A brew timer with presets for gongfu, western and grandpa style
- A built-in library of 20 teas that prefills the boring fields
- Calendar of brew-coloured dots, with full-text flavour search
- Cost per session, rating history, and a CSV export of the lot
Two ways to use it
One-time purchase, no account
Cancel any time
or $10/yr
All five apps together: $3/month, or $30/year
A look inside
The bits worth explaining
The session, not the cup
One entry holds a rinse and every steep after it: seconds, temperature, and a line about what changed. Watching a tea open up across eight infusions is the whole point, and it's the thing a one-note-per-cup app can't show you.
A timer that survives a locked screen
Start a steep, put the phone down. It rings anyway. Each brew style carries its own suggested schedule, so the first steep is already filled in before you touch anything.
A shelf that does the maths
Every tea is a card with a photo, a rating history and a cost-per-session figure that quietly tells you whether the expensive cake was actually worth it.
Findable a year later
The calendar dots are coloured by liquor, so a month is legible at a glance. Search runs across notes, flavours and vendors, and CSV export means your palate data is yours to analyse.
Get TeaBuddy
Buy it once on iPhone, or run the full web version in any browser.
