59 replies to this topic

[jackdaniels]

6. I hate my tea bags floating on the surface of water, so I also use a spoon to crush them against the wall of the cup so that they sink below the surface...both the crushing and the sinking should lead to higher extraction rate...I hope.

Get a teabag squeezer...amazing how much tea comes out of the teabag with one of these!

[James Cain]

6. I hate my tea bags floating on the surface of water, so I also use a spoon to crush them against the wall of the cup so that they sink below the surface...both the crushing and the sinking should lead to higher extraction rate...I hope.

Get a teabag squeezer...amazing how much tea comes out of the teabag with one of these!

Wow. Just use your fingers?

[1kgcoffee]

Who needs a teabag squeezer. I prefer to put it between my tongue and the roof of my mouth an suck out the polyphenols directly.

[Solitude]

I use only loose tea leaves, without any bag or ball; it just goes straight into the cup. I put in water of the correct temperature (somewhere below boiling), let it steep for the normal amount of time, then fill up the rest of the cup with cold water such that the brew is the perfect temperate for drinking as soon as it is made (I'm very bad at drinking hot liquids). Leaving the tea leaves loose in the cup makes a strong blend after several minutes, but without the excessive bitterness of steeping for too long a time in hot water. Once I've finished the cup, I just eat up the leaves. They're much more bitter than the tea itself, but overall quite tasty - you can taste all the EGCG-goodness that didn't make it into the tea.

Edited by Solitude, 09 June 2010 - 03:50 AM.

[1kgcoffee]

Anyone here tried gynostemma (aka jiaogulan)? It seems to blend well together with green tea.

[Elenai]

Hi everyone

I have been lurking this forum for a little while but never really posted before. So after reading this very interesting thread on green tea I am wondering, is there any benefit at all in drinking somewhere between 1 and 3 cups a day? I am not a big fan of tea (any of them) but could make an effort to drink a couple of them everyday if I knew it's really good for me. But realistically I am never going to take to drink like 5 or 6 of them in a day...

Thanks in advance

[e Volution]

Here is something very important we haven't talked about yet: Re-using tea leaves

Do we have any data on concentrations of the good stuff(s) in re-used white/green tea leaves? Does one re-use better? How much is left after a 2nd, 3rd, 4th steep? Obviously if you could re-use tea bags just once you've doubled your effective consumption. I remember reading a post on green tea by JLL and IIRC the highest benefit was at 10+ cups a day and this most likely was from re-using tea leaves.

Excuse me for quoting myself! Can we please get a discussion going about this? It is the only piece of the puzzle missing from this great thread!

I am currently consuming white (Silver Needle) and green (Snow Dragon Jasmine; a beautiful tasting hand-twisted green tea with jasmine blossoms), the white in a stainless-steel tea bag because the leaves float and the green just loose-leaf (leaves mostly sink).

What is optimal seeping time (for health but with taste in mind (can't taste awful))?
What is optimal re-use of each green and white?
How can we get maximum extraction of nutrients from the tea, together with optimal efficiency of use for cost purposes?

For my green tea (this only work with loose-leaf) I have been doing this:
1st cup: Teaspoon of tea in 80*C and left in cup till fully consumed and try drink it within 10 minutes
2nd cup: Re-use same tea leaves
3rd to 10th cup: Re-use tea leaves again but add in 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of fresh green tea. Repeat.

By the end of the day half my cup is full of leaves which I think is great! Thorough stirring each time means huge amount of particle matter is continuously consumed which I hope is additional benefits. Obviously much of the green tea ends up going through numerous steeps which I hope extracts every last drop of phytonutrients. Also with all the leaves and moisture in the bottom of my cup I hope to also be doing some cold-water extraction of nutrients throughout the day inbetween my cup fillings.

What do you guys think? How do you guys do it?

[Forever21]

WHITE TEA - 80* C / 180* F

1st brew - 2 min
2nd brew - 5 min
3rd brew - 15 min


GREEN TEA - 87* C / 190* F

1st brew - 3 min
2nd brew - 6 min
3rd brew - 8 min

[aLurker]

Not sure if this study has been post before, but I haven't seen it and this is the most relevant recent post about tea, so here we go. I've never heard of cold steeping tea before but this claims that it's better for white teas.
http://www.sciencedi...a7015af73895d64


Abstract: A new popular way of making tea, especially in Taiwan, is to steep leaves in cold water. Here we investigate whether antioxidant activity of teas may be affected by hot or cold water steeping and if this correlates with their polyphenol content and metal-chelating activity. A set of five loose tea samples, consisting of unblended and blended teas, was analysed following their infusion in either hot water (90 °C, 7 min) or cold water (room temperature, 2 h). Antioxidant activity, measured as hydrogen-donating ability, using the ABTS· and DMPD assays, showed no significant differences among hot or cold teas, except in the case of white tea, where significantly higher values were obtained after cold water steeping, a recurrent finding in this study. The antioxidant activity of the teas correlates well with their total phenolic content and metal-chelating activity. Cold teas were, however, generally better inhibitors of in vitro LDL conjugated diene formation and of loss in tryptophan fluorescence. The results of this study contribute to gaining further knowledge on how the potential health benefits of this popular beverage may be maximised by the different methods of preparation.

I read the study and to summarize it I'd say cold steeped white tea is the way to go.

A few quotes:

In the present study, in general, steeping teas in cold water or hot water does not significantly affect the TPC content. However, for white tea, surprisingly, TPC is higher when it is steeped in cold water instead of hot water. This finding suggests that certain phenolic components, unique to white tea, but not to others, might be broken down or transformed at high temperatures, contributing to the lower content observed.

For the antioxidant activity, measured as hydrogen-donating ability, using the ABTS or DMPD assays, the results here reported suggest that, in general, there are no significant differences in this activity among hot or cold teas, except in the case of white tea, where significantly higher values are obtained after cold water steeping, possibly due to the reason suggested above.

Also using cold water should make it taste better since they also refer to another study in which this was the conclusion:

catechins, caffeine and gallic acid were released from bag teas as hotter water was used and that these increased with increasing duration

How they prepared the teas, which seems highly relevant:

A set of five loose tea samples was analysed, which included four unblended teas: black tea (chinese Lapsang Souchong), white tea (chinese Pai Mu Tan), green tea (China Special Gunpowder), oolong tea (from Fujian Province – China), and one blended black tea (Lyons Gold Brand which is a blend of African and Indian black teas) denominated Lyons in the figures. All were purchased from local retail shops. Prior to tea preparation, the teas were ground using a pestle and mortar to obtain a homogeneous fine powder for each kind of tea. Cold tea infusions were prepared by placing 0.5 g of tea in 50 ml of mineral water at room temperature and gently agitating for 2 h under magnetic stirring. Hot tea infusions were prepared by placing 0.5 g of tea in 50 ml of mineral water at 90 °C and gently agitating under magnetic stirring for 7 min. Both hot and cold infusions were then filtered through Whatman paper filters (43–38 μm) and diluted appropriately with water according to each specific assay. Throughout the paper, the terms hot tea and cold tea will now be used to express the two types of infusions.

Well that seems like a great method if you have a magnetic stirrer and don't mind using a filter afterwards. For someone as lazy as me it seems like a hassle though.

I therefore propose the follow method to prepare tea: get good quality white tea in bulk along with sealable tea bags.

1. Grind up the white tea with a mortar and place it in the sealable tea bag. Preferably just before use.

2. Add the tea bag to a huge pitcher of water and leave it in for at least two hours or just indefinitely to get the most out of the tea. This might increase catechins, caffeine and gallic acid as mentioned above but should also give you more of the good stuff. Stirring often is probably a good idea too.

Anything lower than room temperature weren't tried by the study but for those of us feeling experimental putting the pitcher in the fridge would make some great cold steeped white ice tea when berries are added to taste. Personally I'll probably I'd probably just leave the pitcher in room temperature and add some frozen berries to each cup of tea to cool it down and give it some taste.

Ground up white tea in a pitcher of water and filtering the infusion for each new cup you take might also be a an option if you prefer filters rather than sealable tea bags. If so, magnetic stirrer anyone? :p

Edited by aLurker, 10 August 2010 - 03:02 AM.

[Forever21]

What's the magnetic stirrer for?

There are huge metallic balls you can buy, put 1tbsp tea inside, close and steep.

Happy teabagging.

[aLurker]

There are huge metallic balls you can buy, put 1tbsp tea inside, close and steep.

Forever21, I own and use several huge metallic balls and they work just fine to make tea the old fashion way. Not to be impolite but perhaps you didn't read my post thoroughly enough before you commented since tea ground up using a mortar would result in a fine powder which a common metallic ball obviously couldn't contain. That's why I proposed either a filter or sealable tea bags which would act as a filter. Perhaps the method used in the study is overkill but it has its hypothetical merits when it comes to freeing all the good stuff in the tea leaves.

What's the magnetic stirrer for?

Since you asked: The magnetic stirrer is to stir... magnetically.

To contribute something more than snarly sarcasm I'd also propose that a dash of lemon might be in order to maximise the antioxidant potential of tea.

Comparative study of antioxidant potential of tea with and without additives.

Oxidative damage is one of the many mechanism leading to chronic diseases. Therefore interest is growing in the protection afforded by antioxidant nutrients against free radical reactions. More recently, the attention has shifted to polyphenols. Polyphenols are secondary plant metabolites occurring widely in plant food. They possess outstanding antioxidant properties, suggesting a possible protective role in man. Tea (Camellia sinensis) is a widely consumed beverage throughout the world containing polyphenols more than 35% of its dry weight. In the present work we have investigated the effect of tea without milk, tea with milk and lemon tea on the serum lipid peroxidation level (as a parameter of free radical generation). The results show that there were significant decrease in serum lipid peroxidation (Malonaldehyde) level half hour after ingestion of lemon tea and tea without milk which tends to normalize with increase in time. This decrease is much significant in case of lemon tea than tea without milk after half hour or one hour. Hence the interpretation is, tea without milk is a good source of antioxidant and addition of lemon to tea increases its antioxidant potential.

[e Volution]

WHITE TEA - 80* C / 180* F

1st brew - 2 min
2nd brew - 5 min
3rd brew - 15 min


GREEN TEA - 87* C / 190* F

1st brew - 3 min
2nd brew - 6 min
3rd brew - 8 min

How many steeps per full metal ball loose leaf tea infuser?

[Forever21]

I keep it in there for the specified times.

[e Volution]

BUMP! I need more anecdotes!

What are the rest of you guys doing? 3 steeps per serving (metal ball worth of tea)? New serving each steep? Or more than 3 steeps per serving? This is very relevant to me because I am attempting to setup a lifelong habit here, and there is substantial difference in the quantity of tea one would go through depending on this steep to tea ratio.

[JLL]

3-4 brews per serving. The 4th will be very light though, so 3 is probably optimal.

[maxwatt]

Much depends on phenotype--- some people do not benefit from EGCG's anti-cancer effects, for them black tea is better.

The first brewing extracts all the caffeine, subsequent brewings extract progressively lower amounts of anti-oxidants et al. Much depends on te quality of the tea, two to four steepings seem to be the maximum possible, though some Chinese teas claim up to seven.

[platypus]

Much depends on phenotype--- some people do not benefit from EGCG's anti-cancer effects, for them black tea is better.

The first brewing extracts all the caffeine, subsequent brewings extract progressively lower amounts of anti-oxidants et al. Much depends on te quality of the tea, two to four steepings seem to be the maximum possible, though some Chinese teas claim up to seven.

Sencha and Gyokuro have more refined taste but I doubt anything can beat powdered teas like Matcha for polyphenol content.

[maxwatt]

Much depends on phenotype--- some people do not benefit from EGCG's anti-cancer effects, for them black tea is better.

The first brewing extracts all the caffeine, subsequent brewings extract progressively lower amounts of anti-oxidants et al. Much depends on te quality of the tea, two to four steepings seem to be the maximum possible, though some Chinese teas claim up to seven.

Sencha and Gyokuro have more refined taste but I doubt anything can beat powdered teas like Matcha for polyphenol content.

I do love sencha, yet after an overly indulgent meal, I find a good black tea preferable. In China, I found some very good quality tea in bags. In theory, if they use good quality paper, it should not affect the quality of the brew.

[panhedonic]

How about grinding white tea and then cold infusing it? Something like white-macha.

I sometimes grind green tea leaves and add it to my morning smoothie.

[hyper_ventriloquism]

I prefer more traditional brewing methods. More leaves, shorter steeps, more steeps, keeping temp in mind. Source directly from farms or competitions if possible. This way I get to experience the full story the leaf has to tell.

I've been on a Japanese greens kick the last three years. Before that it was mainly Taiwanese high mountain oolongs. Before that, WuYi rock and Dan Chong oolongs...

I'm a huge tea fanatic and have been for years, way before the health craze aspect popularized.

I fully believe breathing the tea, living the way of tea, has a greater positive impact on my health than only selecting the teas with the highest antioxidant content and brewing it terribly.

You guys/gals are over-brewing your tea. Find a good tea mastor/mentor and you'll be so happy you did.

Edited by hyper_ventriloquism, 18 April 2012 - 02:52 AM.

[yoyo]

What is wrong with wood?

[hippocampus]

I agree with hyper_ventriloquism, some of you are too obsessed with health and with migh polyphenolic/theanine/whatever content. I drink different types of tea, sometimes it's bai mu dan, sometimes pu erh, sometimes tamarokyucho and so on ... For me, it is very important to enjoy my tea, not just to drink it because it's healthy. If the type of tea I drink most often is not "the healthiest" - so what? I enjoy it NOW (being mindful and stuff ...). It's a ritual, together with meditation it's excellent.
Besides that, different types of tea have different effects - that doesn't mean that only those highest in one component are the best. When I need energy I drink high-caffeine variety, before sleep I drink that with lower. Sometimes I choose it by taste, sometimes I just want to try something new ...

[hyper_ventriloquism]

The first brewing extracts all the caffeine, subsequent brewings extract progressively lower amounts of anti-oxidants et al. Much depends on te quality of the tea, two to four steepings seem to be the maximum possible, though some Chinese teas claim up to seven.

Not to be picky, but you've got a few things wrong here.

First, the idea that most of the caffeine is extracted in the first steep is incorrect. I guess it's relative to the steep time. If your crazy over brewing your tea during the first steep with a steep of over 15 minutes, then I guess you're correct. My first steep for many steamed Japanese greens is less than one minute. Approximately 18% of the caffeine is extracted during this first steep.

In 1996, Monique Hicks, Peggy Hsieh and Leonard Bell published a peer-reviewed paper recording time related extraction of caffeine from tea using a modern detection technique (HPLC). In a nutshell, this is what they found:

30 seconds: 9% caffeine removal
1 minute: 18% caffeine removal
2 minutes: 34% caffeine removal
3 minutes: 48% caffeine removal
4 minutes: 60% caffeine removal
5 minutes: 69% caffeine removal
10 minutes: 92% caffeine removal
15 minutes: 100% caffeine removal

This paper, "Tea preparation and its influence on methylxanthine concentration" appeared in Food Research International Vol 29, Nos 3-4, pp. 325-330.

Second, I've got a number of puerh bings, both sheng and shou, that I can get around 15 to 20 steeps of flavorful brew using traditional Gongfu Cha brewing techniques.

The number of flavorful brews you can get out of a tea depends on type of processing the tea has undergone, quality of the tea and handling, quality of storage and or age, type of cultivar, and brewing method.

[panhedonic]

HV, I'm impressed by your knowledge. Thanks for sharing.

I'm trying to replace coffee with tea, but I have a hard time renouncing to the initial coffee peak in the morning. I suppose you can get something similar with very strong tea.

[Mike C]

Anyone care to list their source of tea and why they use it.

[NuMystic]

On the cold vs. hot study cited above it is worth noting that they’re using much hotter than recommended water (especially for white!) and too short a cold steeping time at only 2h, if health benefits are the focus.

There are other studies that note higher antioxidants in even green tea when cold steeped overnight.

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC4648929/

[Forever21]

On the cold vs. hot study cited above it is worth noting that they’re using much hotter than recommended water (especially for white!) and too short a cold steeping time at only 2h, if health benefits are the focus.

There are other studies that note higher antioxidants in even green tea when cold steeped overnight.

https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC4648929/

 

So you're saying it should be steeped in cold water overnight? Not hot water?

 

Thanks for bringing back to life a dead thread from 12 years ago. lol

[NuMystic]

Yes, apparently overnight steeping without heating provides at least as much benefit, and in some cases more depending on the type of tea than hot steeping. It also resulted in brews with a more pleasing taste to test subjects.

 

Obviously we're just talking about maximum efficiency here. There are clearly still plenty of benefits from hot steeped tea as hundreds of studies have shown as well as a long history of their use. It's still great to know for those who only drink for health purposes, or tea that was going to be served cold anyway, like Hibiscus which many are consuming now just for the health benefits and usually iced.

 

I'm still going to enjoy hot tea when I'm out, or that's what I'm in the mood for. Genmaicha for example when I want something that feels nourishing instead of a calorie laden snack, is not going to provide the same experience at all when cold. 

 

Came back to this thread because it is the only one in the forum that came in google powered site searches on the subject and If I found my way here, then plenty of others will too and I thought it was worth posting updated info for anyone doing their own research. 

Edited by NuMystic, 25 February 2019 - 10:33 PM.

[Forever21]

Yes, apparently overnight steeping without heating provides at least as much benefit, and in some cases more depending on the type of tea than hot steeping. It also resulted in brews with a more pleasing taste to test subjects.

 

Obviously we're just talking about maximum efficiency here. There are clearly still plenty of benefits from hot steeped tea as hundreds of studies have shown as well as a long history of their use. It's still great to know for those who only drink for health purposes, or tea that was going to be served cold anyway, like Hibiscus which many are consuming now just for the health benefits and usually iced.

 

I'm still going to enjoy hot tea when I'm out, or that's what I'm in the mood for. Genmaicha for example when I want something that feels nourishing instead of a calorie laden snack, is not going to provide the same experience at all when cold. 

 

Came back to this thread because it is the only one in the forum that came in google powered site searches on the subject and If I found my way here, then plenty of others will too and I thought it was worth posting updated info for anyone doing their own research. 

 

Well I have since relied on EGCG nootropic powers and L-Thianine. Both from Nootropics Depot but quite commonly available from iHerb.

[NuMystic]

Cool! I was posting here for those who are interested in tea drinking and brewing.