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Will boiling water ruin green tea?

myjapanesegreentea.com

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Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#111
post #92
post #9

There's a lot of factors to it. The way the leaves are processed, the quality/freshness of the leaves, ratio of leaf to water, steeping time. I think in general it's safest to brew green teas at 175f. But I'm doing quick gongfu brewing sessions with a late-march sichuan green tea, and it tastes great at 205f. Less intense at the usual 175f, but picks up more subtle flavors.

Varities of Chinese and Japanese green teas differ in their processing techniques so much that they require different preparation techniques as well. They possess distinctly different flavours, too. Most Japanese green teas are steamed past the harvest time – lightly (gyokuro), or more thoroughly (sencha), or anywhere in between depending on the grade – and some varieties can also be roasted (e.g. yabukita). Japanese…

Yep, roasting the leaves for the kill-green process will leave you with nuttier flavors. Steaming it keeps the umami vegetal/seaweed flavor.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#113
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it seems so dried out you wouldn't have too much to worry about. As for boiling tea for sanitation, I took a wilderness first responder class and they taught us that you could bring water to a boil at any altitude a human can breath at (without holding it at a boil for 15 minutes as some claim) and it's considered sterilized. In Cusco, that would be around 191F/89C (humans can breathe quite a bit higher up than…

Many bacteria have mechanisms for surviving dry periods, ex: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00294-019-01036-z

Unfortunately the bacteria that can survive drying-out are also the ones that survive boiling, so unless you're going to boil your tea in a pressure cooker it's not much help.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#114
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…

If you are paranoid about salmonella in tea, 185F for 15 seconds is enough, and it won't ruin teas that taste better at lower temps.

Or you can top your drink up with very hot/boiling water after brewing

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#115
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…

No need to boil. 80 or 90 degrees is enough to kill germs nearly instantly, 70 degrees takes a little longer.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Becoming a tea snob helped me stay away from alcohol during quarantine :/

How do you get to sleep? I’ve tried tea at various times as a substitute for an evening alcoholic beverage but the caffeine hinders my sleep. I already drink too much coffee before 10am, so adding more caffeine later in the evening has been a problem when I’ve tried it.

Kukicha (though it still has some caffeine), hojicha, rooibos, various other tisanes. Though, the caffeine content of anything that isn't red tea / puerh doesn't effect me much, and there are a lot of good decaf options.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#117

It definitely will. After a couple years of experimentation and testing I've found anything over ~200F is basically undrinkable. It took me so long to figure this out because there were a lot of confounders -- I drank a lot of tea over the holidays back home, and while my parents' town is on the same water source I swear their florination is different, in a way that changes the mouth feel of the tea. I also had a new…

If we're talking japanese green tea, 50C for a very gentle taste、70~80C for a full taste are the basic directions, same as you'll get recommended by the tea makers themselves (an english site [0])

190F(85C) requires more timing control and get out the tea after less than a minute, while lower temperatures are more forgiving.

[0] https://www.theteamakers.co.uk/blogs/news/japanese-tea-brewi...

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#118
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…

While I get the logic, it feels a lot like a "cook your salad to get rid of potential pathogens" strategy. Sure it's safer, but did you really want to boil your salad ?

There surely must be other ways to get probably safe food than boiling everything you drink.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#119
post #110

It definitely will. After a couple years of experimentation and testing I've found anything over ~200F is basically undrinkable. It took me so long to figure this out because there were a lot of confounders -- I drank a lot of tea over the holidays back home, and while my parents' town is on the same water source I swear their florination is different, in a way that changes the mouth feel of the tea. I also had a new…

200F = 93.3C, 190F = 87.8C. Really, we're talking about boiling, why would one even consider using Fahrenheit?

In some places, most of your instruments will likely be in Fahrenheit and Fahrenheit is what you use daily for most tasks. It only makes sense that you use Fahrenheit as your reference point.

A home in other places is more likely to have Celcius, and you'll likely use it.

It isn't like it is difficult to convert.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#120
post #110

It definitely will. After a couple years of experimentation and testing I've found anything over ~200F is basically undrinkable. It took me so long to figure this out because there were a lot of confounders -- I drank a lot of tea over the holidays back home, and while my parents' town is on the same water source I swear their florination is different, in a way that changes the mouth feel of the tea. I also had a new…

200F = 93.3C, 190F = 87.8C. Really, we're talking about boiling, why would one even consider using Fahrenheit?

As much as I prefer Celsius and have no idea what temperatures are in Fahrenheit, it seems quite obvious why people will use it - because it’s what one knows and what is used where one live.
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