No, green tea is not supposed to be bitter. Read on to find out what makes it bitter and how you can avoid some green tea brewing mistakes.
Almost everyone who’s tasted green tea has had a memorably bitter cup. But fortunately, with a little bit of brewing technique, you don't have to drink mouth-puckering green tea. You can make green tea taste great every time with the right water temperature and infusion time. It's simple.
What makes green tea bitter?
Most coffee shops and restaurants brew green tea with boiling water for a long time, and the result is a very bitter tasting tea. As a result, most people think that green tea is supposed to taste bitter. To make matters worse, we often associate bitterness with medicine and health, so people just put up with an unpleasant flavor. This is not necessary.
When compared with black tea, green tea has more polyphenols and chlorophyll, which creates the green color and has a very strong, bitter taste. The flavor of green tea gets overly bitter when these compounds are over-extracted. The way you control extraction (and bitterness) is with your brewing technique.
Green tea needs a lower brewing temperature. Try 175°f / 80°c.
To minimize bitterness, green tea is traditionally brewed at a lower temperature than black or herbal tea.
In our testing, 175°f / 80°c is the ideal temperature for almost every green tea. This temperature slows the release of bitter compounds while still extracting the most desirable flavors from your tea.
How to brew tea with 175°f / 80°c water:
Here are several ways you can control the temperature of your water for infusing green tea properly:
- Get an electric kettle with temperature control. We offer kettles from Breville because we think they're among the best on the market, but there are many brands out there worth considering.
- Use a countertop water boiler, like those made by Zojirushi. These appliances can hold up to 5 liters of water at the perfect temperature for green tea. Another advantage is that you don't have to wait for the water to heat up.
- A slightly riskier option: Use a thermometer. We discourage this because of the risk of burns.
We don't recommend the following techniques because they're imprecise and can leave water either too cool or too hot:
- Don't heat water in the microwave
- Don't use a hot water dispenser
- Don't boil water then let it sit for a while to cool
- Don't heat the water then stop it just before boil
- Don't add random amounts of cold water to boiled water
Next, try shorter infusions. Less infusion time makes tea milder.
If you haven't fixed your water temperature, do that first. Then experiment with infusion time.
We recommend a 5 minute infusion for most teas, but you may find that green tea is still too bitter for your taste. Try reducing the infusion time to 3-4 minutes to see if that makes the favor more to your liking. Use a timer! Don't just guess.
Do not allow the leaves (or the tea bag) to stay in the tea after the infusion time ends. The tea leaves must be removed from the tea to stop the infusion. Otherwise it will just keep infusing, getting more and more bitter over time. We recommend brewing your tea with a One-cup Infuser or a Hario Largo, which makes it easy to remove the tea leaves.
The last factor is your tea leaves
Some green teas are more bitter than others. At August, we select green teas with mellow flavor so those bitter flavors are kept in balance. If you're brewing your tea with the right water temperature and limiting infusion time, and it's STILL too bitter, it might be time to shop for some new green tea. Here's a link to August's green tea selection.
By controlling water temperature and infusion time, you'll never drink bitter green tea again.
I hope this post helps you make more delicious green tea. As always, send us a DM or email us at <hello@august.la> if you have any questions at all.
