green tea

Going Green. The healthy tea.

Green Tea, best known for its grassy vegetal notes and greenish liquor and leaves, is quickly steamed or pan-fired to denature the oxidizing enzymes and preserve the tea's characteristic freshness.  While all tea is antioxidant-rich, some speculate that the minimal processing undergone by green tea allows more antioxidants to reach your final cup.  Without oxidation, green teas must be steeped more carefully, as they can become bitter if steeped too long or at too hot of a temperature.  Never steep green tea with boiling water; near boiling or even cooler will produce much better results.

Among our notable green teas is the famous Gunpowder tea, so named for its resemblance to gunpowder after individual leaves are roasted into a pan, then hand-rolled into pellets resembling the gunpowder pellets used in British cannons. Other green teas are known for having additional flavors incorporated into their blends, like mango, jasmine and other spring flowers, such as our perennial favorites Green Tango, Jasmine Green and Oasis.

Finally, no discussion on Green Tea would be complete without a mention of the green tea with which we are probably most familiar, Japanese-style Sencha. For many of us, our first taste for green tea was formed at sushi restaurants where Sencha is often served at the end of the sensual and artfully created repasts. Sencha warms the soul, cleanses the palate and remains one of our favorite greens.