What is the best type of green tea?
What is the best kind? A few options to consider.
Green Tea Bags
While there's not a vast difference in quality in drinking black tea from bags or from loose leaves, green tea should pretty much always be made from loose leaf varieties if you're looking for quality taste and all the health benefits. Why? Well, for a start, teabags tend to use inferior quality leaves – you know, the ones that wouldn't make the grade for fine tea leaves. If they've been crushed, torn or curled in the picking process, they'll be used for teabags, since no one's going to see them anyway. Which brings us to another point – they're going to be chopped up, sliced and diced beyond recognition into tiny pieces, or – in some cases – nothing more than dust. This means that their freshness is going to deteriorate. And fast. And as the freshness deteriorates, so will the flavor, the catechin content, the level of antioxidants... you get the idea.
Instant Green Tea Mix
Instant tea mix isn't so great in terms of health benefits. In fact, it contains around only 10% of the antioxidants and catechins present in ordinary green tea brewed from leaves. Some are also guilty of possessing fluoride levels that are way too high, as well as artificial sweeteners, too. As a plus, instant green tea mix can be great if you want to make iced tea, as you don't need to use boiling water, and you can get some flavored varieties that taste great as an iced drink without being loaded with sugar. But if you want the natural benefits of pure green tea, then no. This is not the correct option!
Bottled or Canned Green Tea
Drinking your green tea from a bottled or canned version has become an increasingly popular option in recent years, but don't be fooled by the packaging! This is not a healthy drink – just because the name “green tea” is on there, doesn't mean it's automatically good for you. That would be like saying apples are good for you, then deep-frying one in caramel and reaching it on a stick to a child as a healthy snack(!). In fact, most of these canned and bottled versions are loaded with sugar and sweeteners, artificial flavorings, preservatives, calories, and even (in the case of some of the “energy” versions) harmful ingredients that can have serious adverse effects on the health. In addition to this, they only contain a fraction of the beneficial, health-boosting catechins found in plain green tea.
Loose Green Tea Leaves
If you want to make green tea a part of your daily routine in order to increase your intake of antioxidant and fresh, natural green tea goodness, loose leaves are the way to go. No added ingredients, no sweeteners, no sugar, no preservatives – just pure green tea. The leaves are loaded with beneficial catechins, and although the fresh, vegetal flavor may not be to everyone's taste, if you purchase a good quality, high grade green tea, you should be able to find one that you can appreciate if not enjoy.
Useful Links:
http://www.o-cha.com/green-tea-basics.htm
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