I've always enjoyed the bite of bitter, astringent green tea. The tannin flavor just grabs my palate. Probably not for everyone, but it doesn't ruin it for me.
Will boiling water ruin green tea?
181–190 of 219 posts
Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
200F = 93.3C, 190F = 87.8C. Really, we're talking about boiling, why would one even consider using Fahrenheit?
Unfortunately, a lifetime in the U.S. has left me with poor intuition for Celsius. The conversion isn't difficult to do in ones head and for laboratory work, naturally, it's just as easy to read one thermometer scale as another. For everyday life, weather reports, fever thermometer readings, thermostats and such, it is just a nuisance to convert from Fahrenheit and back. If someone tells me it's 15 degrees C outside…
> In the U.S., an ounce of flour weighs less than an ounce of gold.
Wait, what?
I mean: WHAT?!
There's a children's riddle here: "what weighs more: a pound of feathers or a pound of lead."
I hesitate to ask what the US answer to this would be.
Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?
#183Temperature, length of brewing, water hardness all affect the taste. Boiling water gives the tea a bitter taste. Trying brewing gyokuro with boiling water in front of a Japanese. Both the Japanese and the tea grow bitter because of it. The effect is very prominent. Houjicha and bancha are low end tea. (Btw, are they even considered green tea?) Do whatever you want with them. It's like choosing the best glass for a ta…
Sometimes native doesn't mean right.
Try brewing yerba mate in front of an Argentinean/Paraguayam, using using a thermal bottle. Also, boil the water in an electric kettle and pour a bit of cold water on the bottle to bring back the temperature to 80°C
They'll go bananas on how mate isn't served like that, on how you ruined it, etc.
But you can do it like that just fine. And it can be perfectly brewed like that and the taste will be the same.
People just like treating their ceremonies like shaolin kung fu.
Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The scale factor is 9/5, which is close enough to 2 that the precision is fine for casual conversion (weather report, discussion of boiling tea on the web, …)
Definitely not. Say, 86F to C. 86F is 30C, but dividing the F by 2 would give you "43C", which converts to 109F. That is not a trivial difference.
Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?
#185the 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…
This seems extremely paranoid.
I cold brew green (and black) tea and drink multiple cups a day.
Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, a lifetime in the U.S. has left me with poor intuition for Celsius. The conversion isn't difficult to do in ones head and for laboratory work, naturally, it's just as easy to read one thermometer scale as another. For everyday life, weather reports, fever thermometer readings, thermostats and such, it is just a nuisance to convert from Fahrenheit and back. If someone tells me it's 15 degrees C outside…
> In the U.S., an ounce of flour weighs less than an ounce of gold. Wait, what? I mean: WHAT?! There's a children's riddle here: "what weighs more: a pound of feathers or a pound of lead." I hesitate to ask what the US answer to this would be.
Two different units, both called an ounce.
Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?
#187The article misses the other very important points - brewing time, and water:leaf ratio.
The taste of your tea depends a lot on the quality of the leaves. I've used a wide range of Sencha leaves, some of them absolutely hate high temperatures beyond 70℃ while some others happily brew in 85℃.
Brewing times can drastically affect the bitterness of the tea even at lower temperatures because of how the catechins are extracted. In my experience, the first 30-60 seconds can make or break the taste - this is when the temperature must be just right.
I've got a variation to tweak my tea's taste by starting to brew at a slightly lower temperature for about 60-90 seconds and then adding some water at 85-90℃ at this point and letting it brew a bit longer. Some types of sencha teas respond well to this approach, and I feel this brings out a little more of its caffeine content and a hint of bitter / astringent flavours while not overwhelming the overall taste.
It also depends on what you're trying to achieve with the tea. Using the exact same leaves, I sometimes like to brew a very mild warm tea, and at other times the same leaves can be brewed at a higher temperature for a more full bodied tea.
My approach is to experiment with a new batch of leaves to quickly identify its boundaries re: temperature and time, and that gives me a lot of room to play with and experiment :)
Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?
#188Earlier 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.
No, it is very hard to convert. Do you think folks are doing it by hand? nope, they use the internet, the same thing we are communicating on. I agree that the US should convert, but that's another discussion. No need to crap on folks for using something familiar when we all know that's why they do it.
I used a generic unit conversion app that has a specific function for F-to-C conversion. That takes a minute or so to start, enter the numbers, etc. I could have read tens of paragraphs of text in that time.
I agree I'm being a bit harsh here, coming out of the blue on a random comment. But in general I'm very irritated that using non-metric units in an international forum is still a thing. The onus should be on the Americans in their communication, not on others.
The UK and Canada have converted, or are in transition. It takes a generation or maybe two, but I'm certain it's worth the trouble.
Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?
#189Temperature, length of brewing, water hardness all affect the taste. Boiling water gives the tea a bitter taste. Trying brewing gyokuro with boiling water in front of a Japanese. Both the Japanese and the tea grow bitter because of it. The effect is very prominent. Houjicha and bancha are low end tea. (Btw, are they even considered green tea?) Do whatever you want with them. It's like choosing the best glass for a ta…
Green tea in the UK isn’t a staple like black tea is but it is still quite common. All supermarkets tend to carry a good range of teas including green, jasmine, mint and chamomile.
Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Presumably you typo'd the elements here?