How to Prepare Green Tea
- Sencha and Gyokuro-

Quality of water affects the tea taste as much as selection of tealeaves. In preparation of "sencha" or "gyokuro" or any tea, use bottled water if possible. If tap water is to be used, allow it to sit in a jar over night so chlorine and other gas trapped in the water escape.

The water must be kept gently boiling for 3 to 5 minutes, particularly for tap water. After turning heat off, leave it for about 5 minutes to cool. The best temperature for "sencha" is about 175 F, or 80 C. The temperature for "gyokuro" is even lower, 160 F or 70 C. If in a hurry, boiling water can be cooled by pouring into clean teacups, and then transferring to the teapot. During cold winter in Japan, this way is often practiced purposely in order to warm up the teacup while cooling off the boiling water.

Traditional Way

In serving tea, using a teapot has been considered to be essential. Put about 4 to 5 grams (1 table spoon) of gyokuro or sencha tealeaves into a teapot. Pour hot water into the teapot and wait for two minutes. When the tea is transferred into individual cups, do it thoroughly until the last drop drips. The teapot can be refilled with hot water a few times before replacing the tealeaves.

If you are curious how other people recommend for tea preparation, here is one website we recommend: http://aquarius10.cse.kyutech.ac.jp/~otabe/berlin97_pic/tea/tea.html

One untraditional alternative to a teapot is to use a tea-and-coffee maker as illustrated by the photo. Do not share, however, the same device between coffee and green tea.

The used tealeaves from the teapot can still be used (footnote). If the tealeaves are of a high quality, there are some good recipes for mixing with other food, particularly, some vegetables. It can also be used to preserve freshness of fishes, and as deordant for refrigerator.

Faster Way

To those who wish green tea at work, using teapot is probably not practical unless you can hire a secretary (whether male or female of course) dedicated for tea serving. Green tea bag is an alternative. However, while it costs more, their quality is not as good as loose green tealeaves.

A recommended approach is to use a tea strainer made of metal mesh (left side of the photo). Put one teaspoon tealeaves in tea strainer, dip in the teacup and and pour hot water ( 80 degrees C for sencha, and 70 degrees for gyokuro). Wait one minute or two, remove the tea strainer, and the tea is ready. A few cups of tea can be prepared before replacing the tealeaves.

This approach is simpler than using a teapot, but still you need to wash the devices once in a while. The next approach completely eliminates this need.

EZ Tea in Your Office

Here is the simplest approach. Use a Styrofoam cup. Put 1 teaspoon tealeaves directly to the teacup, pour hot water, and wait for one minute. Then, tea is ready.

There is a catch, however. This approach works only with high quality tealeaves, because they do not float.

A fun part of this approach is that, in case a few tealeaves enter your mouth, you can just eat them. High quality tealeaves are tender and delicious to eat. Eating tealeaves is a very healthy practice, indeed, and expected to be encouraged by more and more medical and diet experts (footnote). If someone blames for eating tealeaves, the person should be reminded that people in tea ceremony swallow tealeaves (without noticing it), because "matcha" served in tea ceremony is nothing but ground young tealeaves.

On the other hand, if low quality tealeaves are used in this manner, you must be prepared to see large inedible tealeaves and stems floating. To drink such a tea, you will have to sip with jaw closed like a horse drinking from a tadpole-infested water hole.

Footnote: An article describes " ... since only one-third of tea's nutrients and beneficial ingredients are soluble in (cold and hot) water, the remainder of these ingredients are discarded with the tea leaves themselves. It can be said that to eat tea leaves whole (rather than just to drink the extracted liquid) is the ideal way to elicit all of the power that is ..." For more details, read:
http://www.culture-dome.or.jp/FS-E/NUMBERS/FS19/page02-e.htm