Posted on

The best brewing methods for too-lazy-to-brew and other moods




There is a time in every tea lover’s life, when no matter how much they like tea, they just feel too lazy to spend time on proper brewing and want that cup of tea right now. Sure, there are teabag options out there, thousands and thousands of them, but if you have strongly decided to use only loose leaf, that option is out of the question. So what can you do to satisfy your craving when you’re in a rush or just in a too-lazy-to-brew mood?

Here are the best options for black, green and oolong teas.

Sun Brewing

Sun brewing is perfect for black teas and hot sunny days. All you need is a glass teapot and loose tea of your choice. Darjeeling, and premium Ceylon black tea will give amazingly delicious results. Put around one big spoon* of leaves into a glass teapot or a jar, add one liter of water and let is brew in sun for 3-4 hours. Temperature above 30 degrees are not only good for tanning, but for getting just the right amount of tannins out of the leaves. You can drink it warm or add ice.  *Remember, large whole leaf tea leaves take up more space than broken tea leaves. So you will need more spoonfuls of large whole leaf tea than you would broken leaf tea.

Sun brewing

Fridge Brewing

Fridge brewing is another great way to prepare tea in summer. Fridge brewing is similar to sun brewing, but instead of placing your teapot outside, you place it in the fridge for 4-5 hours. You can leave it overnight if you wish and drink fresh cold tea for your morning workout. Best choices for fridge brewing are green teas – both unflavored and flavored, preferably the ones like Kyoto Cherry or Sencha or organic Ceylon green tea. Use fresh spring water or tap water if it’s safe and good to drink.

Cup Brewing

Cup brewing is the easiest way to brew tea with hot water for all those who like semiball-rolled style oolong teas. Place 3-4 grams of leaves into your favorite cup (200-400 ml), add hot water (around 85-95 degrees would be perfect). You don’t need to strain the leaves, they will unfurl slowly and stay in the cup. Add more hot water for a second brew. Oolong teas are an excellent choice for this type of brewing and just-want-to-relax-with-a-cup-of-hot-tea mood.

Glass Brewing

Very similar to cup brewing, except it is used for mostly green Chinese teas. Why? Because you can easily enjoy the beauty of unfurling leaves. Most well-loved choices are jasmine teas and pan-fired light green teas. Warm the glass first, add freshly boiled water and then add 1-3 grams of leaves. Be careful about the temperature, 80 degrees top. Just pour more water over the same leaves if you want another cup. This is the perfect way of brewing when you are in a too-tired-to-brew mood and want an instant energy from green tea.

Glass brewing

Pretty Brewing

Pretty brewing is our name for brewing flowering tea. Flowering teas are meant to be brewed in a glass cup as they unfurl to form beautiful shapes made of leaves and flowers. These artisan teas were hand-crafted with special attention placed on every single leaf. Use one flower ball on 150-200 ml of water, 90 degrees Celsius and let it steep for at least 3-5 minutes. Perfect for feeling-low-and-need-beauty-in-life mood.

If you’re going to shop on Amazon anyway, why not use my link? Their small commission gives me the incentive to work on even better content. Shop Flowering Teas and Pue-rh tea on Amazon
Darjeeling
Oolong tea
Kyoto Cherry

Sencha
organic Ceylon green tea
Jasmine Green Tea

Posted on

Make the most out of sencha leaves




Sencha is one of those teas that you just have to have in your tea cupboard so why not make the most out of sencha leaves? Sencha is the most popular Japanese tea in the world. Around 70% of all green teas produced in Japan are sencha types, which makes it even more popular than matcha. While matcha is considered ceremonial and culinary tea, sencha is an essential part of every day life in Japan. There are special tea ceremonies that include sencha and you can buy it already prepared in supermarkets or vending machines. Sencha is very easy to brew, saves your teeth from decaying, has just the right amount of caffeine, has a positive influence on immune system and much more catechin in loose leaf form than matcha. Besides, sencha can be used in many different ways. Even after you think your tea leaves are all used up, you can still recycle them in numerous ways. Read our guide and try it yourself.

Drink it first

Sencha is very easy to brew is you follow some basic recommendations. Always use freshly boiled water and let it cool down to 73-75 degrees Celsius. Put 1 gram of leaves on every 50-100 ml of water. Steep for a minute. Next steeping should last only for a few seconds, and third one can be longer. Sencha has a delicate fresh and lightly astringent flavor followed by sweet aftertaste. Drink it hot.

Make the Most Out of Sencha Leaves

Use the last brew to soak your oats or rice

If you are an oats lover, you can soak your oats overnight in sencha tea. Prepare it the same way as you would for drinking. If you are using left-over leaves, you can use higer temperature. The famous Japanese dish ochazuke is made with sencha leaves. Sencha tea is poured over cooked rice with (usually) salmon on top and few traditional toppings.

Make eye patches

Use paper tea filters and fill them with left-over sencha tea leaves. You don’t need to use a lot, 2-3 grams per tea will be an adequate amount. Make sure they are still warm but not hot, just pleasantly warm on the skin. Lie down, close your eyes and place them on dark circles under your eyes for 15 minutes.

Use tea sachets for bathing

Try collecting used dried sencha leaves in a tin can. When your sencha pouch is empty and you made your last cup, you can reward yourself with one more enjoyment – sencha bath. Fill a few tea paper filters with sencha leaves and close them with a stapler to make sure none of the leaves will find their way out. Fill the bathtub with hot water and add 10 home-made sencha tea sachets. Used tea leaves will still have enough scent and benefits to make your skin feel great. You can use new tea leaves as well, but you might want to reduce the number of sachets.

Make the Most Out of Sencha Leaves

Feed plants with left-over leaves

And finally, if you tried all our suggestions and still have some left-over used tea leaves, you can give your house plants a nice surprise. You can use them as a fertilizer. If you forgot about your brewed cup of sencha for a couple of hours, you don’t need to pour it out the drain. Instead, water your plants with it. Always be sure that you are not using hot water for watering (teaing) plants. In no time they will reward you with beautiful healthy appearance.
If you’re going to shop on Amazon anyway, why not use my link? Their small commission gives me the incentive to work on even better content:
Shop Sencha Loose Teas on Amazon

Posted on

The ultimate spring renewal with tea




With spring knocking at the door, it’s time for the ultimate spring renewal with tea. Start cleaning your body – from the inside and outside. Tea has been around for thousands of years. First considered a medicine, then food, later as the drink of social importance that cherishes simplicity and beauty of life, tea is the most important beverage in the world. While Eastern countries know the importance and benefits of loose leaf teas, western people are still at the beginning of this amazing journey. Fast forward your journey with simple ways to include tea in your everyday life and start your spring renewal with green tea today.

Our tea journey guide will show you how to feel great both physically and mentally, by incorporating tea into your daily rituals.

Ultimate Spring Renewal with Tea
Tea and health from the inside

Green tea is great for health, but some green teas are better than the others. Not all green teas have the same amount of EGCG, the most important antioxidant that makes green tea so healthy and desirable. EGCG is contained in tea leaf and is released at high temperatures. This is why matcha is considered healthier than many other green teas – it has at least double the amount of ECGC in a brewed cup than other green teas – because you are consuming the whole leaf. Next choice would be sencha. If you are into macrobiotics, kukicha is the best tea for spring renewal. With almost zero caffeine and the ability to alkalize the body, kukicha is the perfect choice for any time of the day.

Tea and beauty from the outside

Ultimate Spring Renewal with Tea
Powdered green tea like matcha is perfect for making facial masks. It will help reduce dullness and dark circles under the eyes, clear your complexion and bright up the skin. Home-made matcha mask is a perfect natural skin care before the first intense rays of sun hit your face.  Bath sachets made of sencha green tea are so easy to make that you will want to soak in tea all the time. What matcha will do in a facial mask, sencha in the bath will do for your whole body. Green tea has antibacterial properties, invigorates the skin and makes you more relaxed. And it smells heavenly fresh and green.

Tea and inner peace

After the complete skin care routine, you will already feel very relaxed. Now that you have taken care of your health, you are in a perfect state of mind to completely enjoy a cup of tea. Jasmine Dragon is an excellent choice. Delicate jasmine scent mixed with tea leaves to create a perfect visual and tasting experience will help you relax even more. Even in the old China people needed to be in a calm, peaceful, simple state of mind to be able to enjoy tea completely. Create a habit of having your own evening tea ritual. Try to keep it for at least a month. Make tea drinking experience all about peacefulness, serenity, enjoyment and relaxation. Dedicate time to yourself and your tea.

Tea and social gatherings

When tea is enjoyed by one person it can bring serenity and wisdom, but when it is shared by two or three people, it brings enjoyment and bonding. Even the notes in historical writings said that more than three is too much. Invite a friend or two and throw them an inspiring tea party. Kyoto Cherry would be a perfect choice for an early spring outside tea party under the cherry tree. Your own little hanami (cherry blossom watching) can include home-made pastries and drinking tea from delicate tea ware. Is there a better way to welcome spring?

Try all these steps for the ultimate spring renewal with tea and tell us how you feel. Before you know it, you will become addicted to a healthier and greener way of life, and welcome spring with newly found joy.

Posted on

Chronic Pain Goes Away with Matcha




If you suffer from pain or know someone who does, then you should read on.

Dear Nemat:
I am always suspicious of supplements due to the fact they are not regulated. I always wonder if I`m truly getting what is proclaimed by the manufacturer.
I discovered your products through a friend of mine. He swears by your Matcha tea and claims to be in such great shape due to it`s benefits. Following in his footsteps, I purchased the Matcha tea and I too noticed a huge i
mprovement in my being.

It is important to note that I have not worked out regularly for over 10 years due to serious back and neck injuries suffered in a car accident . I have never smoked, I rarely consume alcohol however, I do smoke the odd joint. Even though I am not overweight and watch what I eat, I am not in the best shape as I was before my accident.
After about three days of taking Matcha daily in the morning, I noticed that for the first time in eight years I had NO MORE daily joint and bone pain. I am finally getting back on track and excited to begin an exercise routine and start running again. Now that`s progress!!
I`ve tried all sorts of other prescription remedies that did absolutely nothing to ease my pain and keep it away, which is why I thought I had to live with the pain every day (my alternative was back surgery). Since I started to take Matcha for overall wellness, it was a totally unexpected surprise to realize that Matcha was responsible for taking my joint and bone pain away.

Find Premium Matcha here

For those non-believers…there were no other changes to my daily regimen. The pain returned about a week after I ran out of the tea and then went away again after I started taking it regularly again.
Things just keep getting better…
I then ordered the Iso-Pro Whey, the Spirulina, and the Omega Complete. I`ve been taking these supplements daily for the past three weeks (as per the suggested smoothie recipe). I have NOT begun to exercise (hey, after ten years of living with pain – one gets a little apprehensive to jump into a dramatic lifestyle change overnight) but yet I have noticed a huge improvement in the way my body feels and looks already – I am leaner, my skin has improved dramatically, and I have more energy throughout the day. People look at me and ask me what I am doing because I look much healthier lately. I even seem to have a more restful sleep.
I have not done anything else to change my lifestyle except to add these. I can no longer see my life without them.
And all these benefits without exercise in just two months. WOW! I look forward to further enhanced benefits when I start training again.
I cannot thank you enough for these wonderful health products. Because of them, I have returned to living rather than missing my life.
I want people to know that I believed in myself enough to make the investment and to take the first steps to try these products. It turns out I did something truly incredible!
Sincerely, James P. Etobicoke, ON”

I got this email from our customer James in Ontario. It was not solicited nor will he be compensated in any way for his comments.

Matcha is a green tea powder that is extremely rich in nutrients connected with immune support, weight loss, increased energy, heart health and the balancing of our PH levels. Most of us are slightly more acidic than is healthy. Inflammation and auto-immune diseases like cancer, thrive in an acidic body and go away when you reduce body acidity. The Omega Complete oil mentioned above is a rich source of essential fats which also has an anti-inflammatory effect, thereby reducing pain. GreenMatcha