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Like Oreo cookies, everyone has "their" way of eating the wafers and the creamy filling. So it is with green tea, everyone "grows" into or finds "their way" to brew the perfect cup, actually several ways depending on different circumstances. Some even carry tea bags with the anticipation of asking for hot water at their favorite restaurant later.
Since so many are drinking green tea for the possible health benefits or curative properties, it may be useful to review some basics for brewing the most flavorful and healthful cup possible.
A source at Traditional Medicinals, maker of widely popular pre-bagged and packaged healthful tea blends, offers the following:
One bag of their Organic Green Tea with Ginger (which can serve as an example of a typical green tea bag) is designed to make one cup of tea. Since cups vary in size, 1 cup is considered equal to 8 ounces.
Pouring boiling water over the bag and then letting it steep covered for about 10 minutes will produce an inviting aroma and a most pleasing taste. Covering the container helps to keep the heat from escaping.
The bag contains about 1500 to 2000 mg. of ground tea and ginger or about a small handful of leaves.
The resulting 8 ounce cup will contain about 20-25 mg of caffeine. It will also contain about 160 mg. of Epigallocatechin gallate or EGCg. EGCg's are the focus of research as many believe they are mainly responsible for the healthful and curative properties of green tea. As an antioxidant EGCg is 25-100 times more powerful than Vitamin C or E.
And what of the practice of saving the first bag and adding it with the second bag for the next cup, according to our source at Traditional Medicinals, a tea bag can only offer color and some flavor the second time around. Most of the beneficial constituents of the ground up leaves have already been drawn out during the first brewing. Also using a bag a second time increases the chances of brewing a bitter tasting tea.
Of course even on its best day, green tea is known for having a slightly bitter flavor. Some of the roasted green teas when optimally brewed have a pleasant taste. Still, many tea drinkers add sweeteners or attempt to flavor green tea in some manner either by steeping with orange or lemon slices or adding ginger or honey.
Knowledgeable herbalists, especially those familiar with ayurvedic principles perceive the bitter and astringent aspects as a necessary part of whatever healthful or therapeutic effects that green tea drinking may offer.
Consistent with ayurvedic principle is the concept that when the tongue is stimulated with a bitter or astringent taste, a priming or cueing occurs and the body is then in some way prepared or becomes receptive to the beneficial aspects of green tea.
A pathway to balance, according to these principles, involves experiencing not only sweet and salty tastes that are abundant in the west, but also the pungent, bitter, astringent and sour as well.
Fresh brewed without sweetener may have a healthful advantage over sweetening green tea even with the herb stevia, adding milk or partaking in the ready to drink tea beverages with other flavoring and sweetener added.
By: J. Kratz
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