Green tea is not just a typical beverage. It also serves many benefits to humans. Green tea also acts as one of the most effective home medicine. Most people who drink green tea believe that it is a kind of miracle drink with a lot of healthy benefits. Green tea is considered one of the Specialty Teas due to different reasons.
However, it is better to know how to Brew Green Tea correctly to get the most benefits from it.
It is said that to experience the maximum health benefits of green tea, use it brewed rather than fermented. However, fermentation is mostly used in the preparation of black tea, not in green tea.
Now, you already know that I am a tea lover. With my love to drink tea, I’ve shared some tea recipes and my tea-drinking experience here on Food Corner. So, today I thought of sharing this post thinking it is beneficial for all of you.
Why Brewing is used in Green Tea?
If you wonder why brewing is better, basically there are three important reasons why brewing is used in green tea.
Reason # 1
The process of brewing doesn’t eliminate the important nutrients, vitamins, and components that comprise in green tea. On the other hand, during the fermentation process, it wastes most of the important components leaving the beverages with nothing.
Reason # 2
Brewing can bring out the best in catechin and theanine. Then what is the importance? Do you know these two elements contribute to a lower level of caffeine in your green tea?
Reason # 3
A brewed tea enhances the taste and aroma. Usually, brewing emits a very appealing aroma that can’t be found in fermented beverages.
Now for all these reasons, we need to know how to brew Green Tea correctly. You can also refer to this Chinese Tea Guide for more helpful information about Chinese tea.
Although brewing will give you a good green tea, if you wonder why your green tea tastes a bit strange compared to other great-tasting brewed green tea, there can be a reason.
Maybe there’s something wrong with how you brew your green tea.
Important Steps to Brew Green Tea
#1: Select the best Water
Water plays an important role in the taste of your green tea. Therefore selecting the best water to use is a very important fact that you have to take note of.
For a perfect cup of green tea, manufacturers recommend brewing green tea using soft mineral water or natural water. However, sometimes it is not practical to purchase bottled water daily.
Then the best option is you can consider tap water.
#2: Use Chlorine-free Water
Although the best water is natural water or mineral water, you can still use tap water to brew your tea. But try to use chlorine-free water.
To taste better, Chlorine must not be mixed with the process. However, if you can’t find chlorine-free water, here is the tip.
Just leave your water in your boiling kettle/pot for a couple of hours before finally boiling it.
#3: Boiling process
Once you select the water to boil, boil water until bubbles start to appear. When you notice that the water is already boiling, then take off the lid of the pot. Allow water to boil continuously for another few minutes.
#4: Correct Steep
Use the instruction in your tea bags for the correct steep time as different green tea types require different times.
As a general guideline, let your tea leaves steep for about three to five minutes.
Take note of this. With a longer steeping time, the polyphenol level of tea will increases. At the same time if steeping time takes only a couple of seconds, then that will result to bring more caffeine in the tea.
Therefore consider the steeping time and don’t steep for a lower time or even for a longer steep time.
If the caffeine content in your green tea is increased, that will result in decreased polyphenol content. Polyphenol is one of the main reasons why antioxidants are made.
How to select Tea leaves?
Due to the fact, of fast infusion, it is better to brew green tea leaves that are smaller. Tea with large leaves or tea leaves that are tightly curved may need a longer infusion time. However, this is not important if you are a tea lover and love to taste different tea types. Although curved tea takes much longer time to brew than a small leafy type tea, the extra time needed to steep is not hours. It can be another 2-3 minutes.
However, personally, I prefer to brew Green tea with curved leaves. They are really interesting to watch while brewing. You can have a great tasting experience while brewing this type of green tea.
Which is better? Teabags or loose tea leaves?
As per my research, it seems loose green tea is better when compared with teabags. If you wonder why, here is the reason. Loose green tea allows polyphenols to float freely in your cup. However, if it is a teabag, then polyphenols are unable to float freely. Instead, they will be locked inside the tea bag.
Where to Buy Quality Green Tea Leaves?
Nowadays, you can easily buy green tea from supermarkets or even from online tea sellers. I usually drink green tea from different suppliers and there are some suppliers which I can recommend as quality tea suppliers. On the other way, my recent finding is Teasenz. Seems they offer high-quality Chinese tea. Have a look into tea Teasenz.com, maybe you want to try their tea.
I hope now you know better tips on how to brew green tea correctly. Let me know if you know any other tips for a better cup of green tea.
