How do I make green tea using the tea bags?
Friday, April 9th, 2010 at
3:21 pm
I’m about to pick up drinking green tea more often, most likely using the lipton green tea bags. I have never made any type of tea in my life so I have no idea what I’m doing! What materials do I use and how to I make it?
Tagged with: Green Tea • Lipton Green Tea • Tea Bags
Filed under: Green Tea
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
You make it the same as regular tea but do yourself a favor and get something besides the Lipton you talked about, that stuff is bottom of the barrel for quality. Even most store brands are better than Lipton.
Heat water in a mug in the microwave or boil some and pour it into a mug or glass. Let the tea bag sit in the mug for a couple minutes and taste it to see if it’s right about done.
You need:
1) Green tea bags. I hate Lipton brand now, but I drank them growing up because there was nothing else available.
2) A mug, cup, or other hot water container.
3) A means of heating water. Preferably not a microwave.
The important things to remember are to use water well off the boil and keep the time short. About 180 F – maybe 2-4 minutes off the boil – is a good water temperature to try with green teas. If the temperature is too high, the tea will be bitter and nasty. I like keeping the teabag in 1m 15s to 1m 30s. If you leave the tea bag in for more than two minutes you will also get bitter, nasty tea. Follow these directions and you’ll get what you can get out of Lipton tea bags.
it’s the same with regular tea bag.
heat the water
put into mug
add tea bag
add sugar/honey sweetener
add ice cubes(optional)
i urge you not to drink lipton "green" tea. that stuff’s awful. it’s barely tea. it’s old and it’s dust. it’s gross.
anyway, whatever you do, steep the bag for only 30 seconds to 1 minute. and make sure the water does not boil.
green tea is a more delicate tea than black or oolong, for instance. it can’t take the heat. because this is lipton, a longer brewing time and too hot water will also bring out more of the bitterness.
Just like normal tea, except:
1) Use water BEFORE it’s boiling. Usually when the steam’s just started rising, around 160 to 175 degrees F / 70 to 80 C.
2) Preheat the cup or pot with a splash of the water & swirl it around. This improves the flavor and keeps you from losing too much heat to the cup.
3) Only keep the bag in between 30 seconds and a minute or so, depending on what taste you like. Longer makes the green tea bitter and harsh, though every type of tea varies in the best way to make it.
Some other people have mentioned Lipton’s kind of nasty. Tea bags usually are made of "fannings," the dust left over from the leaves. You’ll get best results from loose leaves, but some brands of tea (Rishi, Numi, Uncle Lee’s) will taste a LOT better.