"greentea" news and stories

Mint Chocolate Matcha Shake. Photo: The Skinny Chef

Matcha is a variety of finely-powdered green tea that is used particularly in traditional Japanese tea ceremonies. Powdered green matcha tea from health food stores can be costly -- about $8 for a small container -- but it goes a long way.

Green tea ice cream, green tea pound cakes, madeleines -- I've made them all. This week I decided to remake the mint chocolate chips that I craved as a child at 31 Flavors.

Get Jennifer's Mint Matcha Chocolate Chip Shake recipe after the jump.

When I first began to dabble in green tea, I absolutely hated it. It was bitter, drying to the mouth, wretched taste, and I was left for a long time feeling that green tea just wasn't for me. Many people I knew who drank black tea felt the same way, so I concluded that green tea was for the few who had the palette for it.

Of course, this was during a time when the only other tea drinkers I knew were buying Bigelow or Lipton bags and, like myself, just throwing them in some boiling hot water and coming back whenever we remembered to take the bag out, squeezing the bag thoroughly to get the last drops into the cup.

I shudder these days when I think about how badly I was scalding my first attempts at green tea, and I marvel that I enjoyed any tea at all, considering the way in which I was preparing it. This is a predicament many novice tea drinkers find themselves when it comes to anything other than black tea: you're scalding (and probably over-steeping it).

Are you an avid tea drinker looking for a different way to enjoy your tea this summer? A lot of tea drinkers go iced in the warm summer months, some even adding lemonade to their iced tea, but there is an even colder way to enjoy your tea in the summer months if you enjoy green tea: smoothies!

Below you will find the recipe for my personal summer tea concoction, which will require matcha (powdered green tea). Matcha is high in caffeine content compared to regular steeped tea, so you may not want to indulge in one of these smoothies too late in the day.

INGREDIENTS
1 tsp matcha (powdered green tea)
4 oz. cup of fruit-flavored yogurt (Light 'n Fit works well, low in sugar)
frozen strawberries (or other desired fruit)
frozen peach slices (or other desired fruit)
apple juice

There is a new product out in Japan that I would love to get a hold of. It's an instant, fresh matcha tea, two words that usually aren't paired together when talking about tea, especially the bottled kind. The unique bottle design allows the tea to be both.

The design makes it so that when you twist the air tight cap a portion of matcha tea is released into mineral water. All you have to do is shake it up. Matcha is a traditional Kyoto (Japan) green tea that is very green and is usually the go-to flavoring for anything "green tea". It's made from leaves that have been covered so that it grows more slowly, which makes it a little sweeter.

As a big fan of tea, I would really like to be able to try an instant, fresh matcha tea. Does anyone know if this is available in the US?

[Via Trends in Japan]

Source

We've heard a lot in the last few years about the health benefits of green tea. It can help with everything from weight loss to cancer prevention. But could the polyphenols in green tea be the next miracle substance?

Researchers in India have been looking into new uses for green tea extracts (GTE), and have come out with a cool new use for them. The researchers found that the extracts can act as a preservative on meat in a room temperature setting. They say that the meat will last four days longer than if left untreated by GTE.

This discovery has major ramifications for undeveloped countries where refrigeration is still scarce. This means that they will have that much more time to sell their goods before things start to spoil, and consumers have that much more time to use the meat. I think that natural preservatives could (and should) be the way of the future. The whole world drinks green tea: what could be more natural than that?