Is Japanese green tea safe to drink?

I was watching SBS’s Dateline this past Sunday when I suddenly took notice of an update on Japan’s radiation levels. The report stated that green tea grown in the famous Shizuoka prefecture was testing positive for high levels of radiation. Since I had just enjoyed some great Japanese green tea the day before, it got me thinking about alternatives to Japanese green teas grown in Shizuoka, especially its famous Sencha tea.

Although many types of famous Japanese green teas, including Sencha, Matcha and Genmaicha are grown in the Shizuoka region, other Japanese green teas such as Gyokuro, are grown in the Fukuoka and Kyoto prefectures. Gyokuro is very similar in taste to Sencha, with a sweet, grassy flavour. As far as I could tell, radiation hasn’t affected this area, so Gyokuro is a great alternative to Sencha tea. You can find it at most tea shops, especially Taka Tea Garden.

If you’re lucky enough to live in Australia, you can also buy Australian-grown Sencha. This green tea is grown in Victoria and sold at The Tea Centre. The flavour is a bit richer and less grassy than Sencha, but very tasty!

The other alternative of course is to drink Chinese green teas, such as the famous Longjing or Dragonwell tea. Although I personally don’t find Chinese green teas as grassy as Japanese greens, their fuller body and rich, buttery texture make them some of my favourites! You can buy online at My Tea House.

Secret tea cocktails

No, this isn’t a photo of a random restaurant in Chinatown. It’s one of Chinatown, New York’s ‘secret’ bars called Apotheke. Notice that the doors on this storefront are a little too nice to fit in? That’s because it’s the entrance to a dimly lit bar whose vibe and décor makes you feel like you’ve stepped back into the 1930s. And the secret to their success? Mixing herbs (tisanes) like lavender and sage with alcohol to create unique cocktails.

The night I dropped by I tried their Lavender Fields cocktail from the “Stress Reliever” category of their cocktail menu. A mix of Tequila, lime, Kalamanci fruit (a tart fruit from the Philippines) and lavender herbal tea, this drink certainly provides some instant relaxation after a long day! It’s very sour, but goes down easy. If you’re a mojito or margarita lover like me, then you know what I mean. Curious to try this one at home, I asked the bartender how it was made. Instead of infusing the Tequila with lavender like you would do with say tea leaves and vodka, they actually just mix lavender infused herbal tea with all of the ingredients.

Make sure you drop by if you’re planning a trip to NYC – and don’t forget which doors to look out for!

Best teas for winter

It got pretty cold and rainy this week in Sydney and a warm cup of tea became a necessity. Usually I drink tea based on what type of flavour I’m craving that day, but pu-erh is my tea of choice when it gets cold. You can get ten pots out of just one teaspoon of leaves (I’m saving for a beach holiday!), so this tea is a perfect companion to your laptop, sofa or wherever else you hide from the cold! In fact all of the cups of tea in the above photo (courtesy of Raymond at My Tea House) came from just one teaspoon of pu-erh leaves, and many, many teapots after!

So what is pu-erh? It’s probably the least well-known of Chinese teas here in the West, yet it can sell for thousands of dollars in China (many Chinese families have put children through school on it!) Similar to a fine wine, this loose leaf tea is allowed to age – and of course the older it gets, the better it tastes. There are two kinds available at good tea shops here: raw pu-erh and cooked pu-erh, both of which come in the form of compressed tea cakes. Raw pu-erh tends to have more preserved fruit notes like plum while cooked pu-erh has a much richer, sometimes mushroom-soup like flavour quality. Regardless of which one you choose, it will warm up your entire body. And it has great winter helath benefits too – aiding with the digestion of all those fatty winter foods.

Click here for simple brewing instructions you can use anywhere, anytime.

Mint pea soup with peppermint tea

I did a tea tasting last week at my friend Claire’s house and for dinner she made a beautiful mint pea soup. I looked up the recipe online last night and decided to make it myself – but with tea. Instead of using a mint leaf to taste, I decided to substitute organic peppermint leaves. A teaspoonful gave my soup a subtle minty zest, so I’m sure if you increased this, your soup would be even more refreshing. Organic leaves are probably best, especially given you mix these in at the end in the food processor. Obviously, it’s also best to bring the soup mixture to a boil before you toss it all in, so the leaves can expand and emit a strong minty flavour. I served mine in a large pink teacup with a few dry peppermint leaves on top for full effect.

Click here for the recipe, taken from Jamie Oliver’s food forum.

From coffee addict to tea lover

I used to need one cup of coffee to wake up in the morning and at least another two to get through the day. The smell of fresh roasted coffee beans made me salivate. And I’ll admit, although I love the variety and health benefits of loose leaf tea now much more than coffee, I still miss that fresh roasted aroma, thick, milky latte texture and spooning off the foamy bit from the top!

But on my recent trip to New Zealand to visit the country’s only tea plantation, Zealong, I made two new tea discoveries that woke up the coffee addict inside. The first was the fresh, roasted aroma and taste of Zealong’s Dark Oolong tea. Opening up a foil sealed bag of this tea will instantly put your coffee cravings at ease – it has that same fresh, roasted aroma that somehow soothes the soul. And the taste doesn’t disappoint either. It has a rich, nutty taste that leaves a slightly buttery texture in the back of the mouth. And if that description doesn’t satisfy your craving, then check out my recent review for Teaviews.

The second discovery was a Maylasian style tea house called Apego in Auckland. Loose leaf tea replaces coffee beans in the expresso machines here and gets brewed up into a tea latte (pictured above - how good does it look?) – complete with that frothy, foamy milk I used to love spooning off the top! I tried the oolong latte just because I was so curious to see how this variety of tea would work with milk (oolong ranges in flavour from sweet and floral to nutty and caramel). Wow! The sweet, floral flavor of the oolong tea leaves actually combined with the warm milk to create a decadent, dessert-style tea. So despite the super-sized tea cup that it came in, I could’ve easily had another. The flavour was a ‘sweet surprise’ and I got that creamy texture I’d been missing. My inner coffee addict loves nothing better than waking up to a nice cup of tea now.

Friday's teapot meltdown!

Buying and storing green tea

I recently searched the streets of Sydney for Gyokuro, a very high-quality Japanese green tea, for a client tasting. Japanese green tea is known for its strong vegetal flavour, but it’s also known for losing it’s taste if not stored properly. But given Gyokuro’s high price tag (between $25 - $45 for 50 grams or approximately 10-15 teaspoons) I wanted to share my findings.

I purchased two lots of 50g worth of Gyokuro – one from a well-known shop that stores its tea in tins (directly inside the tin and without any plastic, which is so, so bad for loose leaf!) and another from a specialty Japanese tea shop that sells Gyokuro in air-tight, foil-sealed bags. Both had a vibrant green, leafy colour and sweet aroma. But there was a slight difference in the taste. The Gyokuro stored in the tin had mellowed in taste due to air exposure, meaning my foil-sealed Gyokuro had a stronger, vegetal flavour. It’s not that the tin Gyokuro was bad, it just had a more rounded, slightly richer flavour than the other, which was much more true to its famous grassy and vegetal taste qualities.

Now I know there are many green loose leaf tea drinkers out there, so following are my tips for buying and storing quality green teas:

1. Foil-sealed bags are best for freshness, as the tea leaves have had limited air exposure
2. After opening, store in an air-tight tin where the leaves won’t be exposed to sunlight or heat (ie not in the cupboard over the stove!)
3. It’s best to store green teas at a constant temperature, meaning if you haven’t been storing them in the fridge, don’t! A change in temperature can sometimes affect the flavour more than storing in the fridge
4. The jury is still out regarding whether the fridge keeps green tea fresher. If you do store it here, try not to expose it to any strong odours
5. Drink green tea soon after opening as the flavour will change over time and may lose it’s fresh, crisp vegetal taste. If you prefer a mellower flavour, then this tea can be stored for about two years