80 degrees – Steep your green tea bag or leaves in 80-degree water, don't boil it. The best way to do this is by stopping the kettle before it reaches the boiling point.
For best flavor, bring spring or freshly drawn filtered water to 185℉. Without a thermometer, this can be achieved by letting boiling water cool for about 2 minutes. Allow the tea to steep for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, remove the sachet and enjoy.
Because green tea leaves are not oxidised like black leaves, you should never use boiling water as it will scorch the leaves and you'll miss out on the tea's full flavour profile.
We recommend brewing green tea using water that is heated to 175 to 180 degrees. This water should be steaming briskly, but not yet boiling. Some speciality green teas, like Gyokuro, should be brewed at an even lower temperature, closer to 140 degrees.
Caffeine is bitter, and it may be a reason why people don't have over-steep tea. Overstepping your tea may result in bitter tea, but this can be avoided by using the proper temperature to brew the tea. That means 106 degrees Fahrenheit for green tea and 200 degrees Fahrenheit for black tea, according to Planet Tea.
Simply steep green tea leaves in cold filtered water and wait for extraction. This brewing method results in less caffeine and bitterness compared to regular brewed green tea. It is also easier since green tea leaves are delicate and require very exact water temperature (176-180ºF, 80ºC) for the correct brewing.
Water temperature and the taste of green tea
Water at a higher temperature will extract more caffeine and catechins, while lower temperature water will do so at a lower degree and still extract amino acids.
Boil Fresh Water
According to popular tea company Twinings, always start with freshly drawn, filtered water. Re-boiling old water left over in your kettle causes it to lose oxygen, which is important in allowing the tea's flavor to develop.
Steep the tea for too long, and you'll end up with an unpleasantly strong, bitter cup. Steep the tea for too short a time, and you'll have a weak, flavorless cup of tea. Making matters even more complicated, different teas require different steep times in order to bring out their best flavor.
Some teas may handle long steeping time, but every over-brewed green tea will become yellowish-brown, bitter and astringent and unpleasant to drink. Keep your steep time up to 3 min max, regarding the type or water temperature.
The results showed that antioxidant activity is generally higher in tea brewed with hot water, but using statistics, this difference was found to be significant only for green tea. White tea deviates from this trend, showing statistically higher levels of antioxidants when brewed with cold water.
Our top tip is never to pour boiling water over a tea bag or loose tea. The reason for this is that the boiling water will burn the tea and scald it; therefore, the tea doesn't release all of its maximum flavours.
Some neutral-tasting tap water may not even need to be filtered. Hard water should always be filtered for the best-tasting tea. However, if you bring it to just shy of a boil and you can still smell minerals, it's still too hard for tea. Consider using bottled water instead.
Drinking a cup of tea is counted as a water intake and just to make sure that you are on the healthy side of drinking it, drink it without any added preservative or processed sugar. Obviously, these refined substances would do you more harm than good.
There are thousands of varieties of green tea, which vary greatly in terms of taste and quality. Typically one would use water that is not quite boiling, and pour it over the tea, letting the leaves steep for approximately 2 to 3 minutes.
Reusing tea leaves: Whole tea leaves can often be steeped 2 to 3 times, producing new flavors with each subsequent brew. Traditionally the water temperature is increased slightly for Chinese green teas and decreased slightly for Japanese green teas.
But all those studies show that filling up on too much green can do more harm than good. So on an average, according to dietitian Palan, for most people, three cups of green tea in a day should suffice.
The best time to drink green tea for brain health is in the morning or early afternoon 1 to 2 hours after meals. As lack of sleep can cause increase anxiety and restlessness, it is best to drink this tea in the morning or early afternoon so that you do not interrupt your sleep routine.
Drinking green tea on an empty stomach can cause stomach upset. Green tea has polyphenols known as tannins that increase stomach acid, leading to stomach pain, nausea, burning sensation, or even constipation. You have to drink green tea between meals or after a meal.
Benefits of Cold Brewing Green Tea
Less bitter than hot-brewed tea — Aside from caffeine, cold brewing tea also releases less catechins and tannins into the brew, which makes the tea less bitter. Extremely easy to prepare, making it perfect for beginners — Cold brewing has an easier preparation method than hot brewing.
You should leave the tea bag in the water for about two minutes so that there is ample time for it to infuse the tea flavor. Poking and prodding should be avoided, let the process happen naturally and slowly.
You still get the antioxidant benefits of tea
Many people drink tea for the antioxidants, which are believed to have health benefits. These antioxidants are found in both hot brewed and cold-brewed tea, so you'll still get the same benefits regardless of which brewing method you choose.
To maximize EGCG content, pour boiling water (not just hot water) over a green tea bag and let steep for 10 minutes before removing the bag and drinking. The only trade off with increased brewing time is a slight increase in bitterness.