02.20.05

Nutritional Contents of Green Tea

Posted in Green Tea in General, Health Benefits of Green Tea at 10:52 pm by site admin

A reader asks…

Hi,

I’ve just received my first shipment of Matcha and Sencha from your company. Could you please tell me what the breakdown of these teas is? I am interested to know the nutritional value based on a per teaspoon amount, if possible. Such as how many calories, carbohydrates, fiber grams (enough to help with irregularity?), fat, vitamin B, E etc.

I also would like a better understanding of the difference between health benefits with Matcha and Sencha, and will I get the same health benefit from eating the Matcha powder as drinking it(adding it to foods)?

How many 1 teaspoon servings per day does your company recommend for the health benefit of these teas?

Okay, you asked me a lot, so I’ll try my best here, heh.

Matcha and Sencha has 0%: calories, cholesterol, fat, sodium, carbohydrates, protein.

Regarding vitamins, I’m going to refer you to these pages:

http://www.o-cha.com/green-tea-benefits.htm

http://www.greenteabenefits.us/green-tea-health.htm

Matcha and Sencha have different levels of amino acids vs. catechins, although they each have some of both.

Matcha - best to drink it fresh, but you can add it to many kinds of foods. The key on green tea is “freshness”. It’s very important, I cannot emphasize that enough. Old green tea or green tea that isn’t packaged correctly oxidizes, and you want it to have “antioxidant” properties, right?!

I recommend a teaspoon a day of loose leaf green tea. One teaspoon makes about 3 infusions, so that should be enough but you can do more. I don’t believe there is a set amount, basically the more you drink the better. Also, a bowl of matcha is a nice supplement to that. You can balance the properties of each out that way. That’s what I do here.

Regarding brewing - how you brew has some effect. First, if you brew hotter, it releases more tannin and gives you a more astringent taste. If you brew on the cooler side, it gives a more mellow taste. This varies depending on the green tea you are selection. I don’t think it’s that critical for health benefits, but it is for achieving the taste you are looking for.

02.03.05

Storing your green tea

Posted in Green Tea in General, Brewing Green Tea at 2:07 pm by site admin

Should I keep my green tea in the freezer? In short, no. Here is why I personally don’t think it’s a good idea.

If the bag has yet to be opened, then you probably should keep it in the refrigerator (the freezer won’t do much for you.) First flush green tea is normally stored under refrigeration throughout the year. Once you open that bag, however, I don’t recommend that you keep it in the refrigerator anymore. Why? A couple of reasons. First, when green tea is packaged, it’s moisture content is reduced to around 2 percent. This means it will suck up moisture very easily. Just the process of moving it to and from the refrigerator is going to expose it to condensation, etc. It also seems to be that it would be very susceptible to absorbing unwanted “refrigerator” tastes that you don’t want.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that good green tea is either vacuum packed or packaged in nitrogen, the later being more common. Once you cut open that bag, the clock starts to tick. You have about 2-3 months maximum to brew your green tea before it deteriorates to undrinkable.

So here are my recommendations:

  • First and foremost, make sure you start off with something fresh!
  • Store unopened bags in the refrigerator
  • Store opened bags in a container located in a cool, dry place
  • www.O-Cha.com sells tea canisters especially made for storing green tea.
  • If it’s been in the canister for 6 months, dump it and get something fresh.

Hope that helps….