How to brew and drink green tea correctly to get all the possible benefits from it: 8 mistakes
Green tea fans appreciate it for its refreshing taste, pleasant color and antioxidant-rich composition.
However, to enjoy this drink and get the most benefit from it, you need to follow a few rules.
Without knowing about them, many make unforgivable mistakes.
The first of these mistakes is pouring boiling water into a teapot with green tea leaves.
Water temperature directly affects the preservation of antioxidants, and boiling water simply kills most of them.
It is best to let the boiled water cool to at least 80 degrees and only then brew the tea.
The second mistake is to use tap water to prepare an infusion of green tea leaves. Even after boiling, it may retain traces of rust, lime or chlorine, which will undoubtedly affect the taste of the finished infusion.
What kind of water should you use? Bottled, spring or filtered. This water will definitely have fewer foreign impurities and will not spoil the taste of the tea.
Mistake number three is adding cold water to green tea if it seems too hot. This will immediately reduce the concentration of flavoring substances, and the tea will become bland. But you also can't drink an infusion that is too hot: it can cause burns to the mucous membrane of the mouth and esophagus.
What to do? It is better to wait until the tea cools down on its own, or place the mug in a bowl or saucepan filled with cold water.
The fourth mistake is to increase the amount of dry tea leaves and the brewing time. If you put a lot of green tea in the teapot and wait longer than 10 minutes, you will get an excessively strong and bitter infusion that will be difficult to drink even for great tea lovers.
The right thing to do is to put the raw material in a teapot at the rate of "one and a half grams per 100 ml of water" and brew it for no longer than five minutes. Then the drink will be moderately strong and will acquire a pleasant color and taste.
Mistake number five is drinking green tea on an empty stomach. The antioxidants it contains can also cause considerable harm, as they increase the acidity of gastric juice, and with regular consumption of green tea on an empty stomach, you can get gastritis or an ulcer. The best solution is to finish your lunch or breakfast with a cup of freshly brewed green tea.
The sixth mistake is to think that green tea will taste even better if you add two or three spoons of sugar and splash some milk.
The result will not be a refreshing and invigorating drink with a tart aftertaste, but a rather high-calorie cocktail. Therefore, you should not spoil the taste of real green tea with various additives, perhaps a slice of lemon is allowed. If you like to drink tea with milk, give preference to its plant-based options.
Mistake number seven is drinking too much green tea per day. This way you won't saturate your body with useful substances, but you will definitely get an overdose of caffeine (which is also in green tea). How many cups is it acceptable to drink? No more than 8 or 9. Yes, and the last one should be drunk no later than 6 pm, otherwise it will be hard to fall asleep.
And the last, eighth mistake concerns the storage of dry green tea. Putting an open bag of tea leaves in a cupboard next to strong-smelling spices or keeping an open jar of tea in the refrigerator where sausages or fresh fish are stored is guaranteed to spoil the product.
Tea absorbs foreign aromas very well, and therefore it can be stored dry only by placing it in a container with a hermetically sealed lid. It is good if this container is made of ceramics or glass, because plastic jars can also transfer the taste of plastic to the tea.
