Green Tea

I dont like iced tea. I don't drink coffee. But I have decided to give green tea a try because of the many healthy benefits.  I drink alot of diet pepsi and I am hoping to replace some of that with the tea. 

Any ideas to help me adjust to liking tea?  Do you like your hot or cold?  With lemon?

I have found a tea called Tropical Green Tea that I feel is delicious and a treat.  Two companies make it and you can buy it online if you don't see it in the stores.

http://revolutiontea.com/

http://www.mightyleaf.com/default.aspx

I just add one packet of splenda but it is still good without any.  Love IT!

I love hot Green Tea (Lipton). I don't get the decaf kind. Doing the same might help your transition. My boyfriend doesn't drink tea, coffee or soda. He's sick so I gave him some plain hot green tea and he loved it.

I recommend trying it plain at first. If you don't like that add a splash of skim milk and maybe a little sweetner.

Celestial Seasonings makes a really good peppermint tea too, zero cals! It tastes like a candy cane!

As much as I love tea, I can't quite get used to green.  Celestial Seasonings and a couple other tea companies make flavored greens with like orange essences and lemon essences and things already in there.  Which as far as I can tell improves the heck out of the tea.  Greens are already fairly sweet teas, but if you're used to pepsi they'll be bitter.

IMPORTANT! Don't oversteep your tea.  Don't leave the teabag in for more than 5 minutes at the ABSOLUTE OUTSIDE or the tannins will leach out and make your tea bitter and nasty.  Most people I know who say they don't like tea have just never had a properly-brewed cup.  That might be one of your turnoffs for iced tea- usually people leave teh stupid bags in FOREVER and it makes it nasty.

Hi!

I've recently made the switch from coffee to tea.  Especially green tea due to the antioxidants.  It's not my favorite thing in the world, taste wise.  I look forward to trying the tropical kind.

I have learned that I enjoy the tea with a slice of lemon, and green tea I like hot much better than cold.

Here's to healthy choices!!

~Amberly

Thanks for all the advise.  I also received an email from my friend who drinks like 12 cups a day and she said it is also important not to put in boiling water.

She suggests bringing the water to a boil, shutting it off and letting it cool just a little for a couple of minutes and then added it to the tea bag.  She also said to make sure I don't leave the tea bag in the water for more than 2-3 minutes.  Once you remove the bag - leave the tea set for 1-2 minutes more before enjoying.

I look forward to trying all this....she is sending me some.

I drink my green tea with a bit of soy milk and two packets of Equal or Splenda, LOVE IT!  I recently tried the flavored teas (peach, lemon) and did not like at all.  You have to try and see which one you like the best.

ALL I DRINK IS ICED GREEN TEA, when it's not water. I boil the water, add it to a pitcher (2 quarts), put in 4 green tea bags for about 5-7 minutes, ring 'em out real good so all that extra flavor goes in. Then I add 1 teaspoon of honey and stir. I used to add 1/2 cup of suger to the water while it was hot to disolve. But now I just add 2 packets of splenda to each glass I have. It helps you to digest your food after you eat too!

Put in the fridge to get cold....

Try green tea mixed with a fruit flavor.  I tried blueberry green tea.  mmmmmmm good.  a little splenda if you like.  To get any benefit from green tea, you need at least 10 cups/day.  So I started taking green tea gel caps.  Couldn't ever drink that many cups of tea.

love, Karen

I like it plain, but sometimes I'll put one packet of equal in it to sweeten it up a little

I've tried a few different green teas, and I've found the best thing is to get it at the Asian grocery-- the ones I find in normal groceries taste awful!  The brand I like best so far is Yamamotoyama ^_^ .  I take my green tea hot, and I used to put a small amount of sugar in, but now I just take it straight.

Wow... Yamamotoyama is from my country! Cool to know they sell it overseas... =]

There are several types of green tea, and thousand types of tea. My best advice is to buy over the internet, since regular stores hardly have anything of top quality.

About green tea, there are several types of it, but the most common, at least here in Brazil, is Sencha, the common steamed japanese green tea.

The best tea leaves for sencha are harvested after spring (yes, right now), and are usually available for 'foreigners' after May. And yes, sencha from other harvests are considerably worse.

They also get stale in a few months, if properly stored, or in a few weeks, if they get too much contact with oxygen. That's also why you should never buy a pack of green tea unless it has nitrogen in it.

Water really affects the taste of green tea, so you should try using  bottled water, comparing the results with tap water to see if it is ok to use it (most of the times, it is not).

To brew sencha, you should use water from 70 to 80C (when the kettle starts making noise) and step it for 2 minutes, no more. You can rebrew the used leaves a couple of times, for 30 seconds.

I've tried about half-a-dozen sencha suppliers, and the best, by far, is o-cha.com. I recommend Sencha Miyabi.

Sencha is delicious. If you make it and still don't agree, you are brewing it incorrectly, or using low-quality leaves.

There are other japanese green teas, and a lot of other teas. If you are interested in knowing more, just let me know.

Thanks!! I love all the ideas and information.  I tried Lipton's green tea over the weekend.  I think I can get used to it and I certainly will try ordering some over the internet from Yamamotoyama.

Question, when I make a pot of it - how much water to how much tea bags?

Hi mweinand,

I think the correct amount is one teabag for each 100mL of water.

Also, correcting my previous post, the best Yamamotoyama teas would be from the beginning of October, since spring starts at the end of September on the Southern Hemisphere.

I drink several cups of green tea a day. I've found that "Good Earth" brand is the best for my tastes.

I would check it out.

Does Green Tea have Caffeine?

It does have caffeine, but you can get it in decaf form too. If it doesn't say decaf on the box, it has caffeine in it!

A little caffeine, yes.

If you are using loose-leaf tea, you get rid of most of it by simply making a first infusion of about 20 seconds, and throwing the result.

i LOVE green tea. i usually drink AriZone green tea. premade and pre sweetened. some morning i make it myself and add honey. i don't drink coffee or soda, and usually caffeine makes me feel weird anyway, not the normal effects =p

but green tea does me goo d=) and i love honey, soboth together are great! for me, dunno about u =)

The Yamamotoyama I've bought is actually from America, so I guess they have tea farms or whatever in a lot of places!  I get it at the Asian grocery.  Most of the tea packages at the Asian grocery (here, anyway) have at least some English writing on them, so you should have no problem finding the brands and kinds you want ^_^ .

green tea is a really nice thing to get into! i wasn't a huge fan of it when i first had some but now i love it! it's one of those acquired tastes that you do have to get used to, but once you do it's delicious. if i was you, rather than adding sugar or or buying those sugary flavoured ones or anything like that i would just make it a little weaker to start with and then build up the flavour as you get used to it. i think that's easier than trying to wean yourself off the sugar. however, if you want to have it as a treat rather than a regular part of your programme then the sugary ones are delicious! hehe. and i do have them occaisionally. i would also recommend, as other people have, maybe buying it from a chinese/japanese supermarket if you have any near you. my boyfriend bought mine back from china when he went on holiday there and its loose tea so you can leave it to brew in a teapot. i find this flavour to be nicer and if you brew a big pot you it's easy to drink a couple of cups! anyway, this has been long, but hope you enjoy your tea!!