Blogs • Posted by Charlotte Dibble • 12th April 2022
Loose Leaf Green Tea
Get clued up on loose leaf green tea and find the easiest way to buy green tea leaves online. Let’s go!
What is Loose Leaf Green Tea?
It’s loose leaf tea! That’s green! Whatdoyamean you wanted more? More info about this fresh, emerald beau-tea (haha)? We don’t blame you – green tea is soooo good!
Green tea is a sweet, subtly grassy-tasting tea dating back 5,000 years. It originates from China, where tea itself probably comes from, but is grown today in many countries, including Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Bangladesh.
Green and black teas come from the same plant: the Camellia sinensis. It’s the later processing stages, mainly the oxidation stage, that decide what kind of tea the leaves will become.
Tea producers make black tea by leaving the tea leaves to oxidise for longer. This gives them a darker colour and classic, malty flavour.
With green tea, the oxidation process is non-existent. Producers heat the tea leaves quickly to permit just a smidgen of oxidation and create that unique green tea taste.
What Does Green Tea Taste Like?
Just as with all teas, no two cups of green tea will taste the same. Flavour depends on the leaves’ country of origin, processing method and cultivation. And how you brew, of course.
Generally, however, lovely green tea tastes:
Grassy
Sweet
Seaweed-Like
Mildly
Astringent
Herbaceous
Buttery
Toasty
This is poles apart from the rich maltiness of black teas such as English Breakfast tea! Although they do share one Very Important quality = DELICIOUSNESS!
How To Prepare Loose Leaf Green Tea
There are two ways you can prepare loose leaf green tea at home: using a teapot or a tea infuser. Use a nice, roomy teapot to brew for friends or a tea infuser if it’s tea time just for you!
How to Make Loose Leaf Tea in a Teapot
Here’s the only guide you need to brewing loose leaf tea in a teapot!
Start by boiling the kettle. The first stage in many a good cuppas…
To make tea for two, add 4 tsps (10g) of green tea leaves to the pot.
Hang fire when the kettle’s boiled – you need to let it cool for 2-3 minutes. Loose leaf green tea likes slightly cooler water than black tea: water at around 85 degrees heat is great. Fill the pot to the base of the handle with cold water and then top it up with 800ml of hot water from the kettle.
Give it a stir.
Dance around the kitchen for 3-5 minutes, depending on the strength of tea required.
Place a tea strainer over your favourite cup and pour in your brewed green tea.
As before, start by boiling the kettle. Then add 1 tsp of tea (3g ish) to your infuser and place it in your favourite cup.
Leave the kettle to cool for 2-3 minutes.
Pour a splash of cold water into the cup and top it up with boiling water. This makes sure you don’t scald your lovely loose leaf tea… it’s got a sensitive soul.
Treat it to a little stir.
Dance around the kitchen for 3-5 minutes, depending on the strength of tea required.
Remove the infuser from your cup and relax – it’s tea time!
Health Benefits of Loose Leaf Green Tea
Chinese and Indian cultures have been drinking healthy loose leaf green tea for centuries. For them, it’s not just about the pear-green colour and gorgeous, grassy-sweet flavour – loose leaf green tea is a medicinal superstar!
Let’s check out the top health benefits of tasty green tea…
Antioxidants
Take a sip of green tea, and you’ll be enjoying one of the least processed types of tea. Remember that bit about green tea seeing less oxidation? Well, it’s the reason why your loose leaf green tea is chock-full of healthy bioactive compounds!
Green tea is high in a type of antioxidant called polyphenols. These are important little fellas and do lots of good stuff like protect against disease and boost brain health.
Green tea is especially high in flavonoids (a type of polyphenol). Flavonoids help the body fight off free radicals and protect it against toxins. They might also lower your risk of suffering from heart attacks, stroke and type 2 diabetes!
Lowers Risk of Diseases
We gave you a sneak preview of this one above… But it deserves its own section, we thought! Because healthy green tea reduces the risk of many diseases!
Sip your green tea, and there’s a good chance you’ll be protecting yourself against some cancers, heart disease, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes.
Green tea is groovy at reducing the risk of diabetes because it improves how responsive your cells are to insulin, which lowers the overall diabetes risk. Multiple studies show this. One study in Japan suggests that people who drink six plus cups of green tea daily are 33 per cent less likely to suffer from type 2 diabetes. Lovely stuff.
Helps with Weight Management
Drinking green tea can help you stay trim! Whoop whoop! Because it contains caffeine and catechins (a flavonoid), green tea promotes fat burning. This means it boosts your metabolic rate and helps you burn excess calories.
Loose Leaf Green Tea Caffeine Content
So green tea contains caffeine? Okay, how much?
It’s impossible to give an exact figure for green tea caffeine because it depends on the individual leaves and how you brew them.
Generally speaking, 230ml of green tea gives you between 30 and 50 mg of caffeine, with 33 mg being the average caffeine content in a cup of green tea.
This is lower than black tea (which gives you a caffeine kick of 37 mg) and much lower than coffee. Your green tea will also be lower in caffeine if you’re using scrummy loose leaves.
Green tea made with fresh loose leaves contains less caffeine than teabag green tea. Why? It’s all down to the surface area of the tea leaves in teabags. Plasticy teabags are stuffed with low-quality ‘fannings’ rather than whole leaves. Fannings are small and dusty, which means they have a larger surface area and transfer the caffeine to the water more quickly.
The larger surface area of teabag fannings makes the precious, flavour-packed essential oils evaporate away, too. Sad – no, devastated – face. Who wants flavour-less, aroma-less teabag tea when you can have burstingly fresh loose leaves?
When to Drink Green Tea
You know you want to drink green tea – but when? Morning? Afternoon? Before bed?
Many people enjoy their green tea mid-morning and reap its health benefits throughout the day. Fancy one of those days when Amazing seems to be your middle name? Then make morning your green tea time!
A short while before exercise is another good green tea time. The caffeine in green tea boosts your energy levels, concentration and fat oxidation, so is a great way to next-level sweat sessions! Bring on the burpees!
We also avoid drinking green tea with a meal (it can inhibit your mineral absorption) and just before bed (that little caffeine kick can still keep you awake!). But any other time, and we say yeeees please!
Buy Green Tea Leaves Online from Two Chimps
Distinctively green and gorgeously flavourful, our artisan loose leaf green tea ticks all the boxes. Style and substance – you bet!
We named our loose leaf green tea leaves PARTEA STARTER because they make us want to paaaarty! It’s the flavour, you see, it’s rather delicious…
We source our premium green tea leaves from the Chamraj Tea Estate in southern India. This historic estate is part of the United Nilgiri Tea Estates and has been harvesting top-quality tea leaves since 1922. We find it located high up in the blue Nilgiris mountains, one of India’s three primary tea regions.
💚 We love this beautiful tea for its earthy lightness and subtle, dewy-garden freshness! 💚
Looking to buy green tea leaves online? In a few quick clicks? Just pop along to our online tea shop today!
Charlotte Dibble
Marketing Creative
Meet the chimp behind this article!
Charlotte joined Two Chimps after completing her BA Hons in Graphic Communication and Illustration at Loughborough University. She also earned two diplomas: Art and Design Foundation and Professional Studies.
What Charlotte does outside of the treehouse:
In her spare time, Charlotte is a keen baker and loves to bring delicious treats for the team to enjoy during their Monday tea break. Charlotte likes to practice her drawing and painting skills to relax, usually with one of her cats sitting on her lap to keep her company!
Charlotte says…
“I’m thrilled to join the Two Chimps Troop after five years of studying. I get to write blogs, design, manage social media, and connect with our amazing customers every day. It’s always exciting, and I learn something new every day!”
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