Will boiling water ruin green tea? • Hacker News Board

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#191

Post by cmcconomy » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

gpvos wrote: post #128

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.

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

what's your take on languages

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#192

Post by PeterWhittaker » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

rplst8 wrote: post #158

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.

The US customary units have a lot advantages. For example: In Fahrenheit, 0 is really cold while 100 is really hot. In Celsius, 0 is kind of cold while 100 is damaging to life. With feet and inches, you can easily divide a foot by 2, 3, 4, and 6 with no repeating decimal digits. It's the same reason the ancient sumerians used base 60 for their number system. With liquid measure, a cup is roughly what would be conside…

> In Fahrenheit, 0 is really cold while 100 is really hot. In Celsius, 0 is kind of cold while 100 is damaging to life.

0C: I need shoes, pants, sweater, coat, gloves.

10C: sandals, pants, two light layers.

15C: sandals, shorts if sunny, one long sleeved top.

20C: sandals, shorts, shirt. Hoodie if windy.

25C: sandals, shorts, shirt optional.

Etc.

How is F more convenient in any way?

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#193

Post by maxnoe » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 2:32 PM UTC

Beldin wrote: post #182

todd8 wrote: post #168

Earlier 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.

It's the avoirdupois ounce (exactly 28.349523125 g) for everything but precious metals, where the Troy ounce is used (exactly 31.1034768 g).

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#194

Post by amluto » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #124

amluto wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t need to boil salmonella to kill it: https://ourdailybrine.com/wp-content/uploads/our-daily-brine... You’ll have to work pretty hard to make a credible cup of tea with viable salmonella in it.

The more sensitive "proper" teas are well into the danger zones e.g. gyokuros tend to be brewed between 50C and 60C, and with brewing times under 3mn. Never really heard of hard thermal limits for herbals though, in my experience they're more resilient and less caring, and you can long-boil most of them like you'd do a middling black tea.

By that standard, you should be really careful with matcha — you mix it will non-bacteria-killing water and then drink the whole thing!

I don’t know whether most pathogenic bacteria can survive prolonged dry storage conditions, though. And, if you’re worried, you could likely pasteurize your fancy tea by heating it, dry, to 60C or so for a while.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#195

Post by astura » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

brewdad wrote: post #109

prophesi wrote: post #29

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.

There are some naturally caffeine free tisanes - I'd suggest rooibos or honeybush.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#196

Post by throwaway1777 » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

numpad0 wrote: post #166

I think one questions that people here might be having is how is the water of correct temperature is actually prepared. Do people just know how to heat water to 60C? That sounds unlikely, doesn't it? In traditional tea ceremony, known amount of tap water is added to boiling water. Comes out okay if protocol is punctually followed. In more casual situations, there are buttons and lamps on electric kettles to cycle thr…

Yeah my kettle as a 140F setting. Works for me. I also use 170F for Yerba mate.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#197

Post by derbOac » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 3:09 PM UTC

morsch wrote: post #31

zokier wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The germ thing seems to go back to this 2005 press release by the BfR, which does indeed urge people to use boiling water to kill Salmonella particularly when preparing herbal tea. It doesn't cite any known cases or numbers: https://mobil.bfr.bund.de/de/presse/presseinformationen/2005... Searching further, there were a couple of cases of Salmonella in infants in 2003 that were traced to fennel anise tea. The timing f…

One thing to keep in mind is that some teas (as in made from Camellia Sinensis leaves) are processed using a pan/ceramic firing or steaming step to stop the leaves from oxidizing. I'm not sure how hot it gets but there is a heating step that might affect the viability of some pathogens.

It makes sense that herbal teas might be more susceptible to pathogen contamination if they don't go through that.

Of course there's plenty of steps along the way to contaminate tea, and chemical contaminants are different. But boiling water isn't the only heating step for some teas.

Having said that, I generally just use boiling or near boiling water for all my tea. I've tried all sorts of combinations of temps with many many different varieties of tea and have decided that the tea variety, amount used per serving, and length of steeping make much more of a difference than the temperature. I also think I just like bold-flavored tea (I do like bitter flavors quite a bit, and have been known to seek them out even when I was too young to really be aware of a pattern with it).

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#198

Post by ioslipstream » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 3:16 PM UTC

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?

It’s not a matter of food poisoning, it’s a matter of do you really want to ingest contaminants. Regular consumption of contaminants such as pesticides, herbicides, and antibiotics (all present in the water supply especially at lower elevations) has an impact on long term health.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#199

Post by scns » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 3:27 PM UTC

I once read about a japanese method for green tea. The first cup is for the enemy, brewed with boiling water for a few seconds to pull out the bitterness and discarded. The second is for a good friend and the third is for you.

My brother once told me, that a japanese professor measured how much of the healthy substances gets drawn out at all temperatures. He found 60°C to be optimal.

I used 80°C for 2nd & 3rd brewing though, since i really dislike the taste at 70°C and lower.

Re: Will boiling water ruin green tea?

#200

Post by hinkley » Sat, Apr 22, 2023, 3:38 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #134

hinkley wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I’ve had loose leaf tea poured for me, the first steep went down the drain. That achieves much the same thing, also gets rid of the little bits that can get stuck in your teeth.

Japanese green teas are not usually steeped multiple times (though most will allow for a few steepings, and a few are designed for that). This sounds a lot more like chinese teas, which are designed for multiple short steepings (gongfu ceremony) and more or less require a rinsing first steep.

You know it’s the same plant right? There’s only so many ways you can prepare and handle wine. The real variety comes from using other plants for the fermentation.