Green Tea: What a Difference a Date Makes.

The object of consuming Green Tea is to derive the greatest health benefits that the brew has to offer. However did you know that Green Tea has a fairly short shelf life, and to get the greatest benefits it should be drunk as quickly after picking as is possible?

The actual shelf life of Green Tea is usually written on the packaging by the production company. Note that it has a shorter short shelf life when compared with other types of tea. The shelf life of Green Tea will generally be up to six months after harvesting, when exposed to open air.

Indeed there are certain varieties of Green Tea which will be deemed spoiled after four months from harvesting.

Keeping Green Tea fresh for consumption in the countries in which it is harvested, although needing care is fairly simple as there is usually no great time-delay in transportation. However with the popularity of Green Tea soaring worldwide it now travels perhaps many thousands of miles from the harvest site before it reaches the customer. So freshness becomes a problem

When transporting Green Tea on long journeys most companies, but not all, seal the tea in packages filled with a nitrogen gas, which replaces oxygen and prevents the Green Tea from oxidisation.

When sold in packages the Green Tea should be sealed in a bag from which the oxygen has been removed. The contents of the bag should then be used within two months so as to have the Green Tea at its freshest.

There is much difference between a Green Tea which has been properly packaged and a Green Tea which has been exposed to air for much of its life.

Sometimes you take a risk in the purchase of your favourite flavour of Green Tea, in that some degradation has happened prior to your purchase due to the exposure to oxygen. You should always read the packaging before purchase to make sure of the harvest date of the Green Tea: the better providers have no problem in giving this information.

Remember, by purchasing the freshest you will be getting a greater helping of the wonderful benefits Green Tea has to offer.

Mike Linder

Mike Linder is the author of the definitive guide to all green teas and their health benefits. www.benefitsdrinkinggreentea.com

Green Tea – The Explosion of Ideas

There is a recent report out which suggests that the consumption of Tea in the USA will hit a new level this year and that last year the tea industry turned over around $6.2 billion. This is a fourfold increase on statistics from 10 years ago and the amount of tea houses/shops also replicates this trend. They have grown from 200 in the early 1990’s to 2000 in 2005, with no sign of the trend slowing down.

The reasons are two fold, firstly that tea is seen as the more health conscious option when compared to coffee, and tea can be infused with other, more subtle flavours that coffee would not tolerate.

Tea in general, but Green Tea in particular, has been gaining a really positive press over the last few years, and although test results vary as to the degree of help that Green Tea gives to our general health, all reports agree it gives some help, and in the opinion of the general public, that’s a good enough reason to drink it.

A surprising statistic is that nearly 127 million Americans say that Tea is now their favourite drink, but 80% of tea drunk in the USA is actually taken over ice.

As Green Tea gets the biggest press about giving the body antioxidants etc, you will not be surprised to know that it is derivatives of Green Tea that are the biggest “movers and shakers” in the drinks market.

Unlike the flavour of coffee, whose strong flavour only lets it blend with other strongly flavoured foods, tea will blend with many other foods and therefore there is a wide range of products now available to tickle the tea drinkers’ pallet.

Tea can be blended with almost any fruit you can think of. Commonly found flavours in tea include peach, blueberry, blackberry, hibiscus, lemon grass, pineapple and apricot. The choices are, it seems, endless. In the search for new ways to ingest Green Tea one speciality company has even developed Green Tea Ice Cream

This explosion of ideas of what to do with and how to present tea are answering the consumer markets requirements for things which are more health conscious and make us feel better about ourselves.

Tea seems to be giving many things to the market that its competitor, coffee, never has. Coffee is presented as a stimulant that keeps you going all day in the never ending rush of life. Green tea and all the others are depicted as the health giving, slower living alternative, and this is what the public is currently leaning towards.

With the marketing men developing ever more ways for us on how we should drink the brew it seems we should prepare ourselves for the explosion of ideas to continue over the next few years.


Mike Linder

Mike Linder is the author of the definitive guide to all green teas and their health benefits. www.benefitsdrinkinggreentea.com