On brewing tea

DirtyDirtyVagrant

I need a cheap way to brew tea (green tea to be exact) in bulk (1-1.5 gallon or 4-6L batches), while retaining all of the goodness of the tea. And by that I mean without sacrificing any of the benefits provided by said tea. I say this because I get the idea that some teas have been processed to remove beneficial compounds in the name of taste, lipton being the biggest suspect.

Monolithic_Dome

I always see Bigelow at the grocery store for pretty cheap. I'm not a tea expert, but it tasted fine to me and I've never heard anyone complain about it.

Monolithic_Dome

...And on the flip-flop, my local co-op sells tea by the oz for pretty reasonable. You might be able to find a co-op or natural foods store near you that does the same.

DirtyDirtyVagrant

You can buy tea at staples? What the fuck?

Monolithic_Dome

Yeah, I noticed the link was to there right after I pasted it. I suppose they do sell coffee makers and coffee there, though? yeah?

DirtyDirtyVagrant

Are those single cup bags?

If they are, it'd take 16 of them to make a gallon of tea. 21 if tea is the same as coffee, where a 'cup' is actually six ounces.

Is $3 for a gallon of tea a good price? I'm asking. Because I'm going through about 3-4 gallons per week, and at this point it makes up something like 20-25% of my grocery bill.

Monolithic_Dome

You could definitely use less than that for a gallon. I'd say 8 or maybe even less. The green tea requirement is a little tough, because iced black tea (orange pekoke) comes in bigger "pitcher sized" bags for pretty cheap.

shadydentist

My advice? Get loose tea, don't bother with bag tea. With green tea, you boil the water, let it cool for a little bit, then steep it in tea for a few minutes. A regular tea infuser should work fine for your purposes, you might just need to set it for longer due to the sheer amount your making.

Nibble

Green tea can also be cold-steeped -- just put it in cold water in the fridge overnight. It won't release any tannin, so it shouldn't be bitter; but I don't know if that means that some beneficial components won't be released either. Another option is to use matcha, which is green tea leaves ground into powder. You can buy low-grade stuff very cheap, and it just needs to be mixed with cold or hot water. It's made from whole tea leaves, and you consume all of the powder, so you'll get 100% of the antioxidants, etc.

DirtyDirtyVagrant

Yeah, I was looking at matcha. The stuff I saw was $20 an ounce though. I'll look more.

KalTorak

Would there be a difference between buying matcha and just grinding up green tea leaves in a coffee grinder?

I guess you'd still have to pay whatever the price is for loose green tea.


edit: Hmmm, looking at wiki, the process for making matcha seems quite a bit more complicated than that.

Daenris

I only occasionally brew green tea in bulk, but do black tea frequently, and use 12 regular bags per gallon. When I do green tea, I use the same amount and it turns out fine (though I usually use loose tea put into bags) with the added benefit that you brew the same bags twice with green tea.

Usagi

DDV, the problem here is that good tea (the stuff with the most health benefits) is kind of expensive, and good green/white teas are among the most expensive out there. Delicious though

So, you may want to keep making your large-batch style iced teas with the Lipton/other bagged green tea, and then invest in a loose-tea brewing setup and explore different kinds of good green tea (sencha, genmaicha, matcha, guricha, gunpowder, etc.)

Or, you can try mixing half green tea/half mint herbal tea for your big batches, you save a bit on the green tea and I really like how refreshing and sweet the mint makes the tea (big plus, no sugar needed IMO)

DirtyDirtyVagrant

I suppose then that the consensus is that good and cheap are mutually exclusive. That's okay I guess.

My dad says he's got a tea ball I can have. I'll have to do some research on brewing. I wonder if I could use a french press.

illirica

If you're using loose tea in that great a quantity, you could consider just dropping the leaves in the pot for a few minutes and then running it all through a strainer to get them out again. That would give them more room to expand than bunching them all up in one tea egg, and I don't know that it would be worthwhile to buy that many eggs.

Or... your crockery may vary here, but could you put the strainer IN the pot, then put the leaves in the strainer and just lift the strainer our when done brewing? I don't know what sort of cookware you have and whether this is feasible, but I could see myself doing this with my 4qt pot and my metal strainer that I use for spaghetti.

DirtyDirtyVagrant

Yeah, looks like a sieve would be a better option, and that would be after the fact.

I actually just watched Alton Brown talk about tea. Very informative.

PolloDiablo

If you're going the loose tea route, you can get cups or mugs that you put the tea in, and then just pour hot water in. That way you just have to boil water, and it would probably be cheaper than buying bags or anything.

Nibble

I guess prices vary greatly according to location. In Taiwan I can get green tea powder (more or less the same as matcha) at $3 per 7 ounces. You can get the same thing from Ten Ren for $18.

Druhim

shadydentist wrote: »

My advice? Get loose tea, don't bother with bag tea. With green tea, you boil the water, let it cool for a little bit, then steep it in tea for a few minutes. A regular tea infuser should work fine for your purposes, you might just need to set it for longer due to the sheer amount your making.

yes yes yes
absolutely go with loose leaf, especially if you're brewing large quantities at a time
if you go to a good tea shop, they should be able to tell you which green teas can be steeped more than once as well as the correct temperature and time to steep

loose leaf seems pricier at first, but I make iced tea at home frequently using good chinese black loose leaf tea and it holds up well to multiple steeps, so a 64 oz pitcher costs me less than $.75