How to Cold Brew Japanese Green Tea — The Expert Advice
If you’re a tea lover, why not try cold-brewing your next pot of Japanese green tea? Cold brew green tea might sound complicated if you haven’t tried it before, but it’s actually a simple process that results in a uniquely sweet, smooth tea.
Cold brewing also offers several unique health benefits that you won’t get if you brew your tea with hot water.
Keep reading to learn all about the process and benefits of cold brewing Japanese green tea!
This article is for cold brewing sencha loose-leaf green tea. If you want to learn more about cold-brew matcha (powder), click here. If you don’t know the difference between sencha and matcha, click here to find out!
What Makes Cold Brewing Different?
As the name implies, cold brewing means the tea is brewed with cold water instead of hot water.
One of the main differences between cold and hot brewing is that cold brewing takes quite a bit longer. While a cup of hot tea is ready to drink within five minutes, cold brew green tea must steep for several hours.
Although this long brewing time can be annoying if you want to drink your tea right away, you can get around the wait by making a large pot of cold-brewed tea before you go to bed and letting it steep overnight.
Then, you’ll be able to sip on the finished product throughout the next day!
Health Benefits Of Cold Brew Green Tea
Even though it takes longer to cold brew green tea, it’s worth the wait.
Tea brewed without any heat tastes different from traditional hot tea — it’s sweeter, smoother, and doesn’t have any of the bitter notes that you can sometimes taste in a cup of hot tea.
This is because cold water doesn’t extract tannins, the chemical responsible for that astringent taste, from the tea leaves. If you like to add sugar to your tea, you might be pleasantly surprised to find that cold brew green tea is already sweet enough on its own.
Cold-brewed Japanese green tea also offers a couple of distinct health benefits.
Less caffeine
First, it contains less caffeine than tea brewed with hot water, which is good news if you’re trying to avoid the jitters.
Cold water doesn’t extract much caffeine from the leaves, so you can go ahead and drink a cup of cold brew green tea before bed because it won’t keep you awake. (Read more about caffeine and green tea in my other article)
More antioxidants
Second, cold-brewed green tea contains more antioxidants than hot tea.
According to a video posted by Dr. Michael Greger at NutritionFacts.org, a team of Italian researchers discovered hot water destroys some of the catechins — the chemicals with antioxidant properties — in tea leaves. Conversely, cold water extracts those catechins without harming them. (Learn a lot more about catechins in this post)
While any type of green tea is good for you, you’ll get more of its disease-fighting and anti-aging properties by choosing the cold-brewed variety.
(Read more about anti-aging and green tea in my other article)
Cold Brewing Method 1: Using Cool Water
This method of cold brewing is called mizudashi (水だし), and it takes a while to steep — a minimum of three hours is recommended. However, the advantage of this method is that it works well for any grade of green tea. In fact, even cheaper green teas usually taste excellent when they’re brewed with cool water.
To make tea with this method, use a ratio of one to two tablespoons of tea leaves per quart of water. For a quick and convenient alternative, you can also use regular green tea bags.
Place the tea leaves in the bottom of a large container or kyusu. (A kyūsu (急須) is a traditional Japanese teapot mainly used for brewing green tea.)
Then add the water, cover the container, and place it in the refrigerator to steep. When you’re ready, give the finished pot a gentle swirl or a stir before you drink it, since the stronger-flavored sediment may settle at the bottom during brewing.
My favorite way is to use a tea filter bag and loose-leaf green tea. Usually higher-grade green tea is available in loose-leaf form and not teabag form. Here is a link from our store (or here is a link to an Amazon to get one of these tea filter bags.)
You can simply put green tea in the disposable tea filter bag and close the lid on the filter
Put it in one-liter jar (1L)
Add water (filtered water is recommended)
Let it sit in the refrigerator for 3–24 hours
After letting it sit for 3–24 hours, stir well before drinking
To get the most out of your tea leaves, you should let the tea sit in the refrigerator for at least three hours. But you can let it steep for up to twenty-four hours for a stronger brew if you want.
Unlike hot tea, cold-brewed tea won’t get bitter the longer you steep it. Therefore, many people like to let their tea steep overnight with this method so they can drink it in the morning.
If you keep it for more than one or two days, it gets too bitter and the water starts to turn brown. With that in mind, it’s best to take out the tea bag after 24 hours if you intend to keep it for longer than two days.
Question: Is it possible to reuse the tea leaves for multiple batches of cold green tea or do you have to change tea leaves every batch?
Answer: I do not personally recommend it.
After 24 hours, the tea does not produce a good taste anymore as it has been soaked too long in the water.
