How to prepare nice Japanese green tea

E. S. Otabe
Fachbereich Physik, Freie Universität Berlin

June 1997

Japanese green tea is known as healthy tea and makes you feel relax very much. Let enjoy green tea!! But coffee has its own way to prepare and black tea also. Please follow these manner or you can not enjoy the real taste of green tea.

1. Boil hot water by kettle. It is better to keep it boiled for three to five minutes to get rid of Cl(chlorine) or another bad volatile material inside the water. Of course it is good idea to use mineral water instead of water supply. It is well known that the preparation of hot water by using an iron kettle leads to best results.
2. You must use teapot to prepare green tea. No coffee server please.
3. The amount of tea leaves for one person is about 4g (equal to two tea spoon).
4. Japanese green tea is very sensitive to very hot water. It easily destroys every fragrance in green tea. Best temperature of hot water for tea is known as 60-80  C depended on your tea quality. Low temperature hot water is suitable for high quality green tea. You can use tea cups to cool down hot water.
5. Put green tea in the teapot and pour hot water. The first cup needs 40-80 seconds. You could shake a bit to help the green tea leaves open in the teapot.
6. Pour until last drop to tea cup(s). Green tea decays very quickly with hot water.
7. From next cups, you do not need to wait. Just pour hot water and enjoy.
8. Keep the rest of green tea in a can or a bottle in which you can completely pack.

These manners are just common in Japan. However, I confirmed in Berlin step by step and found how Japanese manner is suitable for preparing green tea. Please enjoy relax time.

Appendix
Grüner Tee vermindert das Krebsrisiko
Blockierende Substanz Gefunden

LONDON (dpa). Schon wenige Tassen grüner Tee pro Tag vermindern nach Ansicht von US-Forschern das Krebsrisiko. Wie Die Arbeitsgruppe um Jerzy Jankun vom Medical College of Ohio in Toledo herausfand, blockiert eine spezielle Substanz aus dem Tee ein wichtiges Krebs-Enzym und hindert den Tumor damit an der Metastasenbildung. Der Bericht ist in der jüngsten Ausgabe des Magazins ``Nature'' veröffentlicht.

Aufgrund epidemiologischer Studien war bereits vermutet worden, daß grüner Tee eine krebshemmende Wirkung besitzt. Allerdings kannte niemand den wirksamen Mechanismus. Als entscheidende Substanz fanden die Amerikaner nun das sogenannte ``Epigallocatechin-3-Gallat'' (EGCG). Es gehört zur Gruppe der Catechine, die natürlicherweise in vielen holzigen Pflanzen vorkommen. Die Wissenschaftler betonen, daß EGCG nur in grünem Tee vorhanden ist. In schwarzem Tee ist die Substanz zerstört. Eine einzige Tasse grüner Tee jedoch enthalte rund 150 Milligramm an EGCG.

Reference

J. Jankun, S. H. Selman, R. Swiercz, E. Skrzypczak-Jankun: Nature 387 (1997) 561.

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