Green Tea Forum

dirtdigger1969 · Posted: Mar 03, 2007 12:38 am Post subject: Iced Green Tea

I need some advice for Iced geen tea, do you brew it warm and then chill in the fridge or do you brew it cold? And do you follow the same brewing instructions or is it different. Question

Ryan · Sensei Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 475

I have never made iced tea, but one interesting method I have witnessed via an online source is brewing your tea normally, and then pouring it over ice cubes when it is ready.

Chip · Posted: Mar 03, 2007 8:26 am Post subject:

I am not a huge fan of the cold brewing method for iced tea. I prefer to use heated water...I think I am concerned about bacteria and other microbes. I am not fanatical about this either...but I have heard that care should be taken when using the cold brewing method...like getting it into the fridge right away.

Pouring hot tea over ice is quite a good method...or placing the hot tea in the fridge to cool, that way it will not dilute as much when you pour over ice.

I actually like the 3-5 infusions of sencha cold...very nice and mellow sweetness, and that way I get to enjoy the first 2 infusions hot.

syntheticpanda · 2nd Degree Black Belt Joined: 07 Nov 2006 Posts: 198

I would suggest the hot brewing method, then pouring over ice. I wouldn't recommend just putting hot tea into the fridge. To be honest, it would probably cool off faster if you left it in front of a fan or on a window sill. The air in your fridge is colder, obviously, but it doesn't move around very fast, which means the warm air around your tea will come into contact with less ambient air and thus won't lose as much heat.

Also, though this won't matter much with a small amount of tea, I generally avoid putting hot things in the fridge. Frankly, a fridge isn't designed to cool things off-- it is mostly meant to just keep things cool.

The problem is that putting hot stuff into a fridge will bring up the fridge temperature faster than the machine can respond, and could lead to a dangerous raise in temperature, which could be bad for the rest of the food stored in there.

The small amount of heat contained in a glass of tea won't affect your fridge temp much, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. Smile

I hadn't even thought about it before I heard it on the food network (thank you, Alton Brown), but I'm glad I did.

Shirley · White Belt Joined: 05 Feb 2007 Posts: 29 Location: NC

Yes, wait until it cools down before going into the refrig.

How about insomnia if drink iced green teas in the afternoon?

thinkingtea · Uh, Can I Add Sugar? Joined: 11 Sep 2007 Posts: 2

If you think about the health benefits perpective, I agree that it's best to brew tea as you did with hot tea, let it cool, and then add ice to make ice ice. That way, you can be comfortable knowing that all of the essential nutrients are all dissolved into your glass of ice tea.

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Phamt

bluestem · White Belt Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Posts: 23

It's July, and time to turn to my morning ice green tea.

To make iced tea, I brew loose leaf green tea with half the water (about 1/2 cup) used to make a regular cup of hot tea. I brew it just a little longer, maybe just a minute longer, depending on the type of green leaf. Don't want it bitter. Then pour the brewed tea into a pint mug filled with ice. A twist of a lime wedge adds an interesting flavor. After you down that first mug, don't waste those tea leaves, make a second infusion as instructed above and enjoy your refill.

sleepyredmoo · Posted: Jul 10, 2008 1:23 pm Post subject:

i usually brew it with the leaves in ice water for a few hours, just make sure you use good quality tea leaves so it doesn't have bacteria

bluestem · White Belt Joined: 24 Oct 2007 Posts: 23

Hate that bactearia

Chip · Posted: Jul 11, 2008 4:31 pm Post subject:

I have to retract a little...having cold brewed this summer a bit...it is really nice. I even brewed fuamushi Supreme this way...crazy good.

I am still feeling a little funny about it, but I am living dangerously!!! Laughing

maddawg · Uh, Can I Add Sugar? Joined: 30 Mar 2008 Posts: 17

I'm drinking alot of iced green tea. The midori and myabi make great iced tea
My routine is to get 4 beer mugs and put them in the freezer for about 5 minutes. Brew my tea as usual with 3 infusions one after the other and pour it into one cold glass pitcher. Pour the tea into each of the mugs to cool down the tea. The cold beer mugs solves the problem of dilution from the ice cubes.

greenisgood · Black Belt Joined: 20 Jan 2008 Posts: 116

I really started getting into iced sencha as I was trying to use up some tea before I left my stash for a while. I really prefer the ease and quickness of the brewing hot and then pouring over ice method. Taste-wise I think it gives a more astringent and more complex flavor than cold brewing which makes it sweeter. I've found that it works best using a little more tea than normal, and as a personal preference I think it tastes better using more asamushi teas than with fukamushi.

okimasa · Posted: Jul 27, 2008 11:26 pm Post subject:

Tea-Man · Uh, Can I Add Sugar? Joined: 04 Jun 2008 Posts: 11

For something cold and fast, I enjoy drinking iced green tea using Kevin's Green Tea w/ Matcha Tea Bags from this site.

In another topic in the Green tea talk forum titled "The color of green tea should be green?", the question gradually changed to brewing cold green tea and the health benefits of iced green tea bags versus hot green tea.

Kevin's reply to this was

"With the Green Tea S900 - Matcha-iri-Teabags, I put in one bag per quart I shake it up, put it in the fridge, and I leave the bags in the container, but you could take them out. When it gets down about 1/2 way, I refill it up once, and then I drink the rest over a period of a day or two.

I don't have the precise measurements on how many of X it has compared with Y over X amount of time, all I can say is that it's very green and tastes good. It has powdered green tea as well as loose leaf in the bag. Iced green tea is personally not my main way of drinking green tea but I like it once in awhile."

I've followed these directions, and the resulting tea tastes quite good! Smile

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Tea-Man