When I speak to people about tea, they often proceed to tell me that they either hate or they love green tea.  For those that hate green tea I will ask them why they hate it and I often get the same response: “because it tastes bitter”.  The first thing I’ll explain is that green tea is a category and not a type of tea and then I go on to explain that the bitterness could be due to a variety of reasons:

  • The quality of the tea, as green tea in a tea-bag often means that the leaves are broken. 
    Broken leaves can often create a bitter taste.
  • The temperature used to make the brew may be too hot
  • The steeping time was too long.

So when people taste my Lung Ching (Dragonwell) green tea (using a good quality leaf, correct temperature, correct steeping time and with good quality water), they’re often surprised by the vegetal and nutty note of the tea and how delicate the taste can be.  

Green tea may not be everyone’s cup of tea but it could be down to the preparation of it and I hope to change people’s perception of green tea cup by cup. 

Note: Bitterness shouldn’t be confused with astringency but that’s another post waiting to be written 🙂