People demonstrated green tea to have numerous health advantages, ranging from stress reduction to cancer prevention. However, before you put that steaming cup of tea to your lips, do you know how long to steep green tea?
Some individuals leave their tea for as little as a minute, while others wait much longer. The best manner to prepare tea is determined by science, personal choice, and the purpose of consumption.
The green tea steeping science
Do you recall what you learned in science class about osmosis and diffusion? Both principles are explained via the act of seeping tea.
See what happens when you put a tea bag in water. According to Sciencing, water runs through the tea bag (osmosis) and the tea leaves dissolve in the water (diffusion), turning the water brown. In an effort to balance the concentration in and out of the teabag, the water also flows back into it.
As a result, during steeping, the components in tea that give it its flavor and nutritional value permeate into the water. They don’t all ooze out at the same time, either. According to Mental Floss, different substances enter the water at varying rates depending on their molecular weight.
The compounds that give tea its scent and flavor are the first to enter. This is the reason why you can smell tea as soon as you start steeping it. The antioxidants, which include some mild flavanols and polyphenols as well as caffeine, come next. Heavy flavonols and tannins are released while the tea steeps.
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3.How to make green tea in the Vietnamese way
If you drink tea for health
Steeping time: 2 minutes, 30 seconds to 5 minutes
Tea leaves are absolutely packed of health-promoting chemicals. Flavanols present in green tea and black teas, such as catechins and epicatechins, have been shown in studies to help reduce inflammation and plaque build-up in arteries. Tea may help with vascular reactivity, which determines how well blood arteries respond to stress. Drinking three cups of tea a day reduces your risk of coronary heart disease by 27%, cardiac death by 26%, and total mortality by 24%, according to a review of various tea-related studies published in the European Journal of Epidemiology in 2015. Tea’s polyphenolic antioxidants may also help to prevent diabetes, depression, and liver disease.
According to a previous study, extracting half of the polyphenol content from green tea leaves takes 100 to 150 seconds. Allowing the leaves to steep for longer amounts of time adds more polyphenols to your drink (according to a study published in the journal Beverages in 2016). The extra effort, though, may not be worth it: The majority of the chemicals tested after 10 minutes of steeping were extracted in the first 5 minutes, according to the researchers.
Antioxidants are slightly unstable, which means that after infusing with water, they will break down and lose their beneficial effects. “You can’t store the solution for too long once you extract the chemicals from the teabag,” he says. “These chemicals will be oxidized since they are unstable. So if you brew it in the morning and drink it in the afternoon, you’re not doing yourself any favors.” Even after the tea leaves have been removed from the cup, oxidation can occur. So if your tea has been sitting out for a few hours, it’s better to make a new batch than to microwave it.
If you drink tea for taste
Steeping time: 1 to 3 minutes
There’s nothing wrong with drinking a cup of tea just for the sake of tasting it. The most subjective aspect of steeping times is flavor. However, for the purpose of simplicity, imagine you enjoy a strong tea flavor that isn’t bitterness. You don’t need to steep your tea leaves for very long to get those more delicate flavors. Geraniol and phenylacetaldehyde, which give tea its flowery aroma, and linalool and linalool oxide, which give tea its sweetness, are among the first volatile organic molecules to break down in tea.
Another component associated with tea’s characteristic flavor is tannins. They’re the difference between a fragrant, fruity cup of tea and a bitter cup that need milk to make it drinkable. Tannins, on the other hand, aren’t entirely bad: Some tea drinkers prefer their tea to be astringent. Because tannins are some of the last molecules to disintegrate in tea, steeping your tea for a minute or two longer than usual will add bitter complexity to your drink. Examining the color of your tea can help you keep track of its strength: Pigments, like tannins, are heavy compounds. So if your tea is getting darker, it’s also getting stronger.
If you drink tea for the caffeine boost
Steeping time: 3 to 5 minutes
A well-made cup of tea packs a caffeine punch, although being less strong than its rival coffee. Allowing your tea to brew for at least a few minutes, according to a 2008 study published in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology [PDF], has a significant impact on the caffeine level. A cup of standard Lipton black tea had 17 milligrams of caffeine per 6 ounces of water after one minute of brewing. In addition, it has 38 milligrams per 6 ounces after three minutes. And it has 47 milligrams per 6 ounces after five minutes, according to the study.
Some people might use those figures as an excuse to steep their tea for longer than five minutes in order to achieve 100 percent disintegration. However, a longer brewing time does not always imply a larger caffeine kick. Yes, the tea will include more caffeine molecules, but it will also contain other substances such as thearubigins. Caffeine works because it’s bound to specific neuroreceptors in the brain. Thereby, it inhibits the chemicals that make you tired. Caffeine, on the other hand, is the correct form to bind to thearubigins. If that happens first, less caffeine will reach those neuroreceptors. If you want a cup of tea with a lot of caffeine, remove the leaves. It takes around three to five minutes, rather than waiting for every last mg of caffeine to dissolve.