06.12.05
How to pick a good green tea
So you’ve decided to try green tea. The next big question that often comes to mind is “which” green tea to select. If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog, you’ll already know that you want a first harvest (first flush) green tea. Since O-Cha.com offers many different types of green tea, we are often asked which green tea will give the maximum health benefits. There really is no straight answer for this. The fact is, most high quality green teas have comparable health benefits. However, the devil is in the details. Before considering which green tea to select, first make sure to consider the following:
- Harvest - 1st flush, as mentioned, is always the best.
- When was the tea packaged? Compared to other types of tea, green tea is very sensitive to shelf life. When properly packaged, green tea generally has a short shelf life of about 6 months. This can be stretched to about a year if refrigerated. We’re only talking about unopened, nitrogen filled packages. When you purchase your tea, see if you can find out when it was actually packaged at the factory. The less time, the better. Most of our teas are packaged within one week of the date they are sold. Did it spend 6 weeks in transit on a ship? How long has the tea been sitting on a shelf?
Once you’re confident that your supplier has fresh, first harvest tea, its then time to consider variety. There are really three main choices:
- Sun Grown green teas (Sencha)
- Shade Grown green teas (Gyokuro)
- Powdered Green Teas (Powdered Sencha & Matcha)
For the purpose of this entry, I’ll stick to the first two as matcha has already been covered. From a health benefit point of view, they are very similar. They do vary somewhat in the amount of polyphenols, catechins, and amino acids contained in each, but the fact is - each is high in all three properties. Check out the chart of green tea properties I put together for a comparison. As you will see, it’s a “six of one, half dozen of another” type of situation. In a nutshell, you’ll want to pick the variety of green tea that suites your taste because as long as the quality and freshness is there, you’ll be covered in the health benefits area. The main difference when we get to this level of quality has to do with price and taste.
Shade grown green tea, gyokuro, has a sweeter, less astringent taste than the other green teas. Oh, they are good, but since they can be pricey and tricky to brew correctly, if you are brand new to green tea, I’m going to recommend that you start with the sun grown types. Gyokuro pricing varies widely depending on whether it was hand picked, the location it was picked, etc, and can get quite expensive. Some of the absolute best green teas are hand picked where only the top 2 or 3 leaves are taken. So if you are new, you’ll probably want to cut your teeth on a sun grown green tea like sencha, kabusecha or fukamushi cha.
Sun grown green teas - There are many types, but the basic ones are sencha, kabuscha, and fukamush cha. Any one of these would be a great green tea to start off with. When shopping, remember that price differences will depend on quality.
Like wine tasting, you can develop your ability to judge a good green tea by simply trying many of them, comparing colors, aromas, tastes. By following these tips, hopefully your first try at green tea will not be a bitter disappointment.
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