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.

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