Too Hot To Handle

I never liked green tea.

It's true, I didn't. And if truth be told again, I'm still not that fond of it. Too many bad memories of ugly tasting teas, I think. It didn't matter the grade or the type of green, all of it tasted like sudsy bitter ick. I looked all over the place for a good green, and delighted in finding new combinations of berries and flavours; vanilla blueberry pomegranate peach cinnamon maple green apple mandarin orange. My eyes used to flit over the displays of Liptons and Tetley's, looking for something, anything to banish the last awful cup from my mind.

Then, much later, I learned the real secret to good green tea, and I was transported. But not till much later, I'm afraid. Even though my boyfriend would happily slurp back his morning cup of pomegranate green, and I would sadly push around the bag with my little spoon thinking, "At least its hot".

But I digress.

But the point of this is to show to readers that green tea can be delicious as well as healthy, it can be sweet, subtle, flavourful, herbal, and hearty tasty, without anything but itself. You don't even need to pay an arm and a leg for tender leaves picked by vestal virgins while scaling a cliff thousands and thousands above the sea in the light of the moon.

If such a tea exists, I would pay any price for it. Moving on.

Green tea is one of the only teas I know of that is entirely dependant on amount brewed, time brewed, and most importantly (aka easiest to screw up) the heat of the water. I would also throw white into this category, as well as high grade oolongs, but that's just my opinion. Don't bother to follow these directions if you still insist on hauling out the Liptons; teabaggin' it is still teabaggin' it, no matter what you do.

First, remember that with all tea of the camellia plant, remember its generally one teaspoon for one cup of hot water. And I don't mean drag out your silverware and your mugs, I mean take out your baking tools and measure roughly 5mL of tea and 8oz or 250mL of hot water. While you're doing this, put your kettle on to boil. Now, I know you're already biting at your lip; boil you say? Certainly, I have to get started on my heat sensing psycho-kinetic powers to determine when to yank the kettle off at exactly the right temperature before it gets too hot, right? Or, even more insane, spend a couple hundred dollars on a robot kettle who will boil the water to just the right temperature and then stop on time with the help of their space-time thermometers?

If I ever spend that much on a kettle, it better be able to pleasure me sexually and do my taxes, too.

So how do you do it? Because I do advise you, trying to dump boiling hot water on a good grade of green tea in hopes of enjoying it is reminiscent of licking the Mona Lisa to really experience its mastery. Freshly boiled water will scorch the tea leaves, giving it that trademark bitter sting. Some fanatics even claim you are boiling away the antioxidants, but I'm not sure how much I believe that. Wrecking my tea is sacrilegious enough. Fear not, gentle readers, you don't need to suffer that horrible fate any longer. Just make sure you let the kettle sit for five minutes, open, after it has come to a boil, off of any heat. Presto, your water has just climbed down from 100 degrees to the safe comfy cozy heat of 80 degrees.

Pour your cooled water over the leaves, and let it sit for no more then three minutes. Remove your leaves, settle back, and sip. Isn't that better? Of course it is, but don't thank me. Oh, alright, go on then. You're welcome.

And remember! Even crummy grades of green tea (notice I said crummy, not trash, Liptons) have at least two or three steepings to it. The better the tea, the better and more of those steepings! Invest extra cash in your green tea habit, get more bang for your buck. If it's one thing I believe in, it's banging as hard as I can for every buck. That, and good tea. Enjoy!