Comparison

Steep vs Pekoe

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Steep

Features
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Steep is the tea app for people who care how their tea is brewed. Set a precise timer for green, black, oolong, white, or puerh — with smart presets for temperature and time. In gongfu mode, Steep tracks each short infusion in sequence, auto-bumping the next steep and counting down right on your Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, so your hands stay on the gaiwan. Build your stash by photographing a tin or pouch — Steep reads the label and fills in type, origin, vendor, and harvest year for you to confirm. See your whole collection at a glance, track quantity and value, and mark aging puerh cakes you're saving. Journal every session: log each infusion, dictate tasting notes hands-free, and let on-device intelligence organize them into aroma, body, and finish. Suggestions, never appraisals — your palate stays the authority. When your shelf is worth showing off, export a beautiful tea-shelf card to share with your community. Everything syncs privately across your devices with iCloud. Nothing leaves your phone for our servers. Free to brew with built-in timers and a starter stash. Steep Pro unlocks unlimited teas and sessions, label scanning, AI notes, value tracking, and unbranded cards — monthly, annual, or a one-time lifetime unlock. Steep your tea. Remember it. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://brainrash.com/privacy

About

Pekoe

Features
Read full description

Pekoe is a private tea timer, personal recipe book, and tasting journal, for iPhone and iPad. Every tea opens on its exact recipe already set: 35 teas from 25 regions, each with its temperature, leaf, water, steeps. No account, no ads. Multiple infusions, gongfu style: each steep keeps its own time, and the next begins right where the last one ended. Brew, taste, judge in one tap, too light, just right, too strong, and Pekoe proposes one clear change for next time, in plain words. Accept it, and your recipe quietly becomes yours. THE LOOP • Every tea opens on its exact recipe, temperature, leaf, water, steeps • A timer built for tea: multiple infusions, and a Live Activity on your Lock Screen and Dynamic Island • After the cup, one tap: Too light / Just right / Too strong • Too strong, but how? Bitter or heavy: the nuance picks the lever, water or leaf, and the advice says why. Never a black box • Next time, that tea remembers. "Your recipe", it says. It means it. • The recipe thread: every adjustment you kept, drawn on the tea's page, your taste as a line you can read • The tea page opens on the recipe, then says what the tea remembers of you: your last verdict and the change you kept, in words ONE PEKOE, EVERY SCREEN • On iPad, the brew screen opens into a full brewing bench, the dial on one side; steeps, ideal window, and origin on the other • Widgets bring the kettle closer, start your last tea from the Home Screen or Lock Screen • °C or °F: one setting, and every recipe, slider, and cooling curve follows • Your journal, teas, and recipes sync privately through your own iCloud. Never a Pekoe server. THE ATLAS • The world of tea has a tab of its own: every region drawn from real geography, each with its story • Every one of the 25 regions now wears a painted card, gouache on paper, and says so: each is labelled as the illustration it is • "In harvest this month" and "in harvest soon": see which of your teas are being plucked, all year round • Gardens on the map: real tea gardens to visit, region by region • Blends show every origin, Earl Grey maps both its Anhui black and its Calabrian bergamot • Paintings from the world's great museums, all public domain YOUR TEAS • A curated catalog of 35 teas from 25 real growing regions: origin, process, harvest calendar, and the story of each leaf • Five herbal infusions join the leaf: lavender from Valensole, linden from the Baronnies, peppermint from Milly, hibiscus, and ginger. Each with its own recipe, and a map of where the plant comes from • How each tea is made, drawn: twenty-one gestures in a single ink line, from withering to firing • Every tea wears the color of its cup, celadon to copper • Theine at a glance, in words, never milligrams • Add your own teas in seconds: a name and a family are enough • Find any tea from Spotlight, Pekoe answers before it opens YOUR JOURNAL • Every session stamped and searchable, parameters, verdict, stars, notes • Edit anything, even the date. Last night's forgotten pot has a place • Deleted by mistake? Undo. Six seconds of forgiveness YOURS, FULL STOP • No account. No ads. No tracking. No Pekoe server • Your data lives on your devices and in your private iCloud, where Pekoe cannot see it • Export your whole journal as JSON or CSV anytime, and restore it just as easily • Something to tell us? One line in Settings opens a mail you write and send yourself. Pekoe sends nothing on its own Siri speaks tea, in English and French: "Start a brew in Pekoe", "Brew again in Pekoe", "Just boiled in Pekoe". And Pekoe itself speaks English, French, Japanese, and Arabic, fully right to left, down to the dial. Pekoe remembers how you brew, so every cup gets better.

Screenshots

Steep4 screens
Pekoe4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Pekoe at none against Steep's 2. Pekoe also leads on update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 2 months) and iOS requirement (18.5 vs 26.0). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

Both are free to download. Steep sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Pekoe asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Steep ships an update every 2 months, Pekoe every 2 weeks. Both last shipped on October 28, 2026.

Scorecard3 real differences Ā· 3 level
Steep versus Pekoe: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSteepPekoe
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS26.018.5 — better
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB19 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJustin PruskowskiIzuba

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Steep

Subscriptions2
  • Steep Pro Monthly$2.991 Month
  • Steep Pro Annual$14.991 Year
None

Pekoe

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Steep free?
Steep is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Pekoe free?
Pekoe is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Steep or Pekoe have ads?
Neither Steep nor Pekoe shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Steep or Pekoe?
Steep ships an update every 2 months, and Pekoe every 2 weeks. Most recently, Steep was updated on October 28, 2026 and Pekoe on October 28, 2026.

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