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

141–150 of 219 posts

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#141

Post by Broken_Hippo »

Shaanie wrote: post #122
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On the contrary Fahrenheit and Celsius is one of the harder units to convert. Can't just "halve and remove 10%" in your head like you can for pounds. Though I agree with you that you can't expect Americans to use SI units.

Most folks reading this will have the internet. It makes conversion easy. If you don't, charts help get most common things converted.

Easy.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#142

Post by pasquinelli »

Groxx wrote: post #85
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

English teas are very much bred and selected for boiling water - this is definitely the right choice for them. For most greens though (particularly the more fragile ones), oh heck no. They taste absolutely awful at high temperatures.

what does absolutely awful mean to you? i've made green and black tea in the same way and don't have a problem with either, but i've learned in my years that i'm much less averse to bitter than most people.

so is bitter what you mean by absolutely awful?

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#143

Post by prmoustache »

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.

You might want to use water with high level of iron though. My grandfather used to use arsenic to brew cider because its local water had really high levels of iron.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#144

Post by pasquinelli »

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?

i suppose i'm in that 15%. i sometimes drink a tea made from a fresh hop cone to help me sleep. it's not so much that i don't taste bitter, just that i'm not averse to a lot of the flavors people call bitter (and there are a lot of flavors people call bitter.)

i don't know if it's related but i've also noticed i'm much more tolerant of ginger than most people and i can't taste cardamom (seed of the ginger plant, interestingly) at all.

hey, people are different.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#145

Post by onethought »

kriro wrote: post #130

It all depends so much on the tea. There are many, many varieties of green tea. My goto for an "average" green tea is a maximum of 70C and for most other teas (Oolong, Red etc.) it's 95C but the temperature is only one variable. Leaf to water ratio and steeping time are the other two. I usually brew Gongfu style (more leaf, shorter steeping times). For a nice Gyokuro on the low end of the temperature scale, I usually…

That scene from fearless comes to mind: https://vimeo.com/15687220

Enjoying tea is more to do with the individual, than the tea itself.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#146

Post by herbst »

pasquinelli wrote: post #140
gpvos wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is very hard to convert. The US has about 4% of the world population. Adapt. It's not worth the communication problems.

i suppose they will when they have to.

They more or less did. It's just the general public that for some reason still uses these units.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#147

Post by lakomen »

There are so many blog posts about green tea being healthy. Every time I tried some its taste was revolting (like drinking dirty feet water), and it created a rough feeling in my throat.

I usually drink peppermint and/or camomile. If not solo, the mix must be 50/50 or it also tastes like old socks. I also like various fruit teas, or blends like orange and curcuma, rose hip/hybiscus.

As a European I don't understand the green tea hype.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#148

Post by dotancohen »

lakomen wrote: post #147

There are so many blog posts about green tea being healthy. Every time I tried some its taste was revolting (like drinking dirty feet water), and it created a rough feeling in my throat. I usually drink peppermint and/or camomile. If not solo, the mix must be 50/50 or it also tastes like old socks. I also like various fruit teas, or blends like orange and curcuma, rose hip/hybiscus. As a European I don't understand t…

This is why I've never drank dirty feet water or tasted old socks. Europeans have some strange food habits.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#149

Post by code_duck »

lakomen wrote: post #147

There are so many blog posts about green tea being healthy. Every time I tried some its taste was revolting (like drinking dirty feet water), and it created a rough feeling in my throat. I usually drink peppermint and/or camomile. If not solo, the mix must be 50/50 or it also tastes like old socks. I also like various fruit teas, or blends like orange and curcuma, rose hip/hybiscus. As a European I don't understand t…

I’m not sure why that would have been your experience. Decent, well-prepared green tea should have a very mild grassy flavor and aroma. Possibly, as far as the rough feeling in your throat, the tea was prepared with too hot water or steeped too long, which releases astrigent chemicals as described in this fine article.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#150

Post by dotancohen »

zokier wrote: post #13
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…

That seems paranoid considering that I have never heard anyone getting food poisoning from tea, no matter how it was brewed. edit: Reading the linked article, it seems mostly concerned about contaminants and not germs. Intuitively thinking, I'd imagine higher temps would end up extracting more of those from leaves to the drink than lower temps?

  > Intuitively thinking, I'd imagine higher temps would end up extracting more of those from
  > leaves to the drink than lower temps?
If we're discussing non-volatiles such as heavy metals, boiling acually concentrates them by removing some of the water. This is more of a concern with the water than with the tea, however if one is already bringing up the health aspects then obviosly neither can be ignored.
Post reply on HN