Infused water, with ratios and steep times

A cold-morning drink built around one number: the water temperature. Ginger at 75 to 80 °C gives a rounded heat that fades in ten minutes; at 100 °C it turns sharp and slightly metallic in half that time. Eight minutes of steeping, lemon added in two stages, and no sealed thermos anywhere in the process.

One orange, one lemon and twelve torn basil leaves in a litre of cold water. Ninety minutes on the counter gives you a drink that tastes of citrus oil rather than juice — bright enough to replace a second coffee, with no sugar and no fizzy water to open.

The fastest of the cold infusions — thirty minutes is enough — and the one built for a hot afternoon. Ribboned cucumber, twenty lightly pressed mint leaves and two limes in 1.5 litres give you three 500 ml servings that taste cold and green rather than sweet.

Watermelon is the only fruit here that adds water rather than only flavour — 300 g of cubes release roughly 270 ml of juice into the jug as it steeps. Two sprigs of rosemary and half a lime keep it from tasting like diluted melon, and 45 minutes is the entire steep.

The only infusion in this set that is made entirely in the fridge. Fifteen grams of whole hibiscus petals and 150 g of frozen berries left for eight hours give a tart, dark red litre that keeps for two days and needs no sugar to be drinkable.

Nine hundred millilitres of warm, lightly spiced apple water for the last two hours of the day — no caffeine, no alcohol, and no sugar unless the apples need it. Ten minutes of steeping at 80 to 85 °C, one cinnamon stick, and a strip of lemon peel to stop it tasting flat.