Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Will boiling water ruin green tea?

myjapanesegreentea.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 219 posts

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#71

Post by zwieback »

olivermarks wrote: post #34

I drink ridiculous amounts of English Breakfast tea with 1% milk every day. The water HAS to be boiling when it hits the tea. You cn really tell the difference if the water is less than boiling. Same but more subtle with green tea imo

You're my spirit animal now. I drink massive amounts of strong black tea with milk and I agree, has to be absolutely boiling and I preheat the teapot.

At work I put a teabag in hot water and zap it in the microwave for 20-30s, key to driving out the flavor into the water.

I don't like green tea but I would think that you should experiment with whatever temp gives you the extraction you need. Don't listen to experts is rule #1 when it comes to brewing.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#72

Post by martinjacobd »

foobarian wrote: post #68
voytec wrote: post #48

L-theanine is a hell of a drug! And 65-75°C is a safe bet for almost all greens. Germs won't survive on dried herbs with no access to water. Bacterial spores can survive on dry stuff and these can be inactivated by high temperatures, but 65°C should do. Also, we humans have this cool ability to raise body temperature to kill unwelcome stuff, so we're good until cordyceps evolves. Toxins on the other hand, may be able…

Funny thing, botulism toxin does not survive boiling temps, but its spores do.

Don't the spores only matter for babies and the severely immunocompromised?

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#73

Post by ruph123 »

foobarbecue wrote: post #69
ruph123 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A person I know had to get tested for toxins at work regularly and at some point showed really high arsenic levels. At which point they had to figure out what poisoned him. He worked in material science but no materials he handled would have given off arsenic to his body. After some investigating, they found out that the Pu'Erh tea he consumed was the culprit. They tested the tea in a lab and after he stopped drinkin…

Boiling isn't going to do anything about arsenic.

Sure, just wanted to add a data point about food poisoning yourself with tea.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#74

Post by vba616 »

thfuran wrote: post #26
stametseater wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All foodstuffs are contaminated with germs, unless you go to extraordinary effort to prevent it (e.g. intense gamma radiation.) Unless there is some particular reason to care (you're a hospital feeding people who had their bone marrow nuked by cancer/chemo), then the correct solution is to stop caring. Who ever heard of people dropping dead because they brewed their tea with sub-boiling water? This isn't happening, i…

People mostly get by fine without boiling their salads but they do occasionally get e coli or something.

They occasionally get hepatitis or something and die.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi-Chi%27s

Oddly, the restaurants are gone, but there is salsa using the brand in some supermarkets still. I wouldn't buy it, even though it presumably is just someone else using the logo.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#75

Post by dima55 »

galangalalgol wrote: post #47
dima55 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually drink not-bottom-of-the-barrel sencha? If not, your experience is not applicable, respectfully. With even middle-of-the-road sencha the difference is far from subtle.

15% of people don't taste bitterness in the same way. Hops taste floral and a bit sweet to me and I like to chew on Artemisia species my family finds hideously bitter. I could put cheap gunpowder green tea in a percolator for an hour and it wouldn't taste bitter to me. Perhaps the gp has the same trait?

Maybe that's true, but arguing that putting boiling water on decent (i.e. not bancha or genmaicha or whatever) japanese green tea is a weird, minority opinion for a good reason. Also, gunpowder greens are not japanese.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#76

Post by golem14 »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #32
taraparo wrote: post #8

the german tea expert Ernst Janssen recommends to also use boiling water to prepare green tea as most of the teas are contaminated with germs and other things. different green tea brands including organic tea brands were tested by the renowned German test.de magazine and they confirmed that, also most of organic teas are contaminated. and since this is nothing you can easily check at home, better use boiling water. h…

Dreck reinigt den Magen. Stellt Euch nicht so an, Ihr Weicheier!

Obligatory reference: "You are all diseased" by Geoerge Carlin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X29lF43mUlo

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#77

Post by dima55 »

zwieback wrote: post #71
olivermarks wrote: post #34

I drink ridiculous amounts of English Breakfast tea with 1% milk every day. The water HAS to be boiling when it hits the tea. You cn really tell the difference if the water is less than boiling. Same but more subtle with green tea imo

You're my spirit animal now. I drink massive amounts of strong black tea with milk and I agree, has to be absolutely boiling and I preheat the teapot. At work I put a teabag in hot water and zap it in the microwave for 20-30s, key to driving out the flavor into the water. I don't like green tea but I would think that you should experiment with whatever temp gives you the extraction you need. Don't listen to experts i…

The article is about good Japanese teas. You're talking about black tea in bags.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#78

Post by jakzurr »

hot_gril wrote: post #60
benatkin wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's absolutely false because those teas are completely legit because in this case lower grade doesn't mean crappy . If it did that would be reasonable advice to give. If you tell someone never to drink those lower grade teas you're doing them a disservice and that's the only situation in which the advice about never using boiling water would apply.

But does non-boiling water not work well with lower-grade tea? I drink that stuff all the time and find it best with ~180˚F water. Seems like it's reasonable to just never use boiling water for green tea.

But your take is exactly the right one: Use the tea you prefer, prepared with the water temp that gives it your favored taste.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#79

Post by aaron695 »

taraparo wrote: post #8

the german tea expert Ernst Janssen recommends to also use boiling water to prepare green tea as most of the teas are contaminated with germs and other things. different green tea brands including organic tea brands were tested by the renowned German test.de magazine and they confirmed that, also most of organic teas are contaminated. and since this is nothing you can easily check at home, better use boiling water. h…

[dead]

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#80

Post by 3np »

elif wrote: post #51
olivermarks wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought Sencha was different to green tea, steamed leaves, more subtle?

"green tea" is an English term which essentializes Asamushi, Chumushi, and Fukamushi versions of Sencha, Gyokuro, Matcha, Bancha, Genmaicha, Hojicha, Kukicha, Shincha, Tamaryokucha, Kamairicha, Konacha, Mecha, Guricha, Hentaigama, Batabatacha, Wakocha, Karigane, Tencha, Aracha, Yanagi, not to mention the regional specializations.

Aside from matcha (powdered), konacha (powdered), hojicha (brown) and perhaps kukicha (twigs), most (all?) of the other ones are also just sencha, or loose-leaf green tea.

Shincha would just refer to freshly picked sencha, for one.

"Green tea" would be 緑茶 (ryokucha). Hojicha is not ryokucha nor green.

Post reply on HN