Making Iced Green Tea: All the Ways to Make It at Home

As summer approaches, the season of iced tea also arrives, a way to enjoy all the benefits of our favorite drink, which thus also becomes thirst-quenching and refreshing, ideal for the hottest days of the year. Not just iced matcha, but iced green tea too? In fact, you can drink iced green tea as an alternative to iced matcha on these hot summer days.

In this article we will see how to prepare iced green tea at home using different methods, which leave its flavor intact and do not affect its properties. You can choose from your favorite teas, add ingredients as you like, and make a completely natural and genuine iced green tea, without adding sugars or preservatives.

Green tea is one of the most loved teas from the very famous Japanese to Chinese green teas. It is an infusion renowned for its important properties and benefits and appreciated for its sweet, herbaceous and slightly astringent taste. Green tea is in fact a powerful antioxidant, an ally of health, which according to some scientific studies, if associated with a healthy lifestyle, can help you lose weight more quickly.

We know the flavor and benefits of green tea infusion well. In this article we want to talk about the different ways to prepare iced green tea in an optimal way. The herbaceous flavor of green tea goes well with cold infusion, but it is important to know how to prepare it in the right way to obtain a refreshing and thirst-quenching drink that maintains the typical properties of hot infusion.

Let's discover the best methods for preparing iced green tea at home without having to resort to ready-made sachets or industrial drinks rich in sugar, with some advice on how to enhance its taste with special ingredients.

Green Tea with Cold Infusion

The preparation of green tea with cold infusion is perhaps the most used, and does not require any particular elements other than water, tea leaves and a little patience! Cold infusion of green tea allows you to obtain a refreshing and thirst-quenching drink by infusing green tea leaves in cold or room temperature rather than hot water.

Let's see how to prepare it:

Ingredients

• 6 grams of Green Tea Leaves
• 500 ml of cold or room temperature water
• Bag for tea and herbal teas

Preparation of Green tea with Cold Infusion

1. Place loose green tea leaves in a carafe, or place them inside a tea bag, and place it in the bottom of the carafe.
2. Pour cold water over it
3. Leave the green tea to infuse for at least six hours, placing it in the refrigerator if you want it colder. You can extend the infusion time to 8 hours if you want to obtain a more intense flavour.
4. Strain the tea or remove the teabag, and store in the refrigerator. Serve with ice.

This method of cold infusion of green tea is also called the cold brew method, and allows you to easily prepare homemade iced green tea even without ice or special tools. You can decide whether to use loose leaf green tea, filtering the infusion before drinking it, or use disposable tea bags, which allow for a very simple infusion.

With this method you get an excellent iced green tea without sugar, but if you want you can add a sweetener, such as a teaspoon of honey or agave syrup, or some mint leaves. To make your own green tea with cold infusion at home you can choose your favorite green tea in the vast section of green tea on sale online on Terza Luna: Japanese Sencha Kagoshima tea lends itself very well to cold infusion, as well as Kōridashi method.

Kōridashi Method: Iced Green Tea with Ice

Traditionally in Japan iced tea is prepared with the Kōridashi or kooridashi technique. What are we talking about? A very particular infusion because the tea leaves are left directly in contact with the ice. The interesting thing, which makes this method particularly recommended for the preparation of cold green tea, is that the two components that make our tea bitter and astringent, caffeine and catechins, dissolve more in hot water than in cold water.

Unlike the amino acid L-theanine which is quite soluble even in cold water and gives the tea its sweet and umami flavour. Not only that, L-theanine is an excellent anti-stress.

A method perhaps little known for preparing cold green tea is the Kōridashi method, or Kooridashi, traditional from Japan. This method of infusing green tea is very particular but effective. It consists of placing the leaves directly in contact with ice, which will create the cold tea infusion when it melts.

This method is very suitable for the preparation of cold green tea, as catechins and caffeine, responsible for the bitter and astringent flavor of green tea, dissolve much more in hot water than in cold water, while L-theanine, which gives a sweeter to tea, it also dissolves in cold water. A homemade cold green tea made with the Kōridashi method is therefore much sweeter, while maintaining all the benefits and properties of the hot infusion.

If you have the patience to wait for the ice to melt, this is a great way to make the perfect iced green tea, especially if you're using L-theanine-rich green teas like Gyokuro or Kabusecha. However, it will be more complicated to prepare iced green tea with this method using teas such as Hojicha.

Let's see how to prepare it:

Ingredients

• 6 grams of green tea
• 500 ml of ice cubes

Preparation of Cold Green Tea with the Japanese Method

1. Pour the green tea leaves into a teapot or carafe
2. Add ice cubes until full
3. Wait for the ice to melt (generally in 3-4 hours)
4. Filter and serve

This traditional method allows you to obtain a sweeter and less astringent infusion, however it requires more time, as you have to prepare a sufficient quantity of ice and then wait for it to melt. For a quicker method that includes ice, you can opt for iced green tea with ice.

Iced Green Tea: Quick Recipe with Ice

Many will be tempted to make their own iced green tea by infusing green tea leaves in hot water , and then letting the infusion cool in the refrigerator. In reality, this method for preparing iced green tea is very wrong, as we have already seen in the article on iced teas.

Letting green tea cool makes it much more bitter and astringent, also losing its beneficial properties. Rather, you need to prepare a hot green tea and immediately lower the temperature by placing it in a shaker with ice.

Let's see how to prepare it:

Ingredients

• 5 grams of green tea leaves
• 300 ml of water
• 12-15 ice cubes

Preparation

1. Steep the green tea leaves in water at around 80°C for 3 minutes.
2. Pour the ice cubes into the shaker
3. Filter the tea infusion and pour it into the shaker with ice. Shake until the temperature is completely lowered.

This method allows you to prepare iced green tea quickly and easily if you always have ice ready when needed. You can add mint leaves or honey for an extra touch, but we recommend drinking iced green tea without sugar, to enjoy all its thirst-quenching flavor in its purity.

Properties and Benefits of Cold Green Tea

If extracted with the indicated methods, which allow you to correctly extract all the nutrients and substances that make this tea a health-friendly drink, cold green tea can also have numerous benefits for the body.

Green tea, even in its cold infusion, is a rich source of antioxidants, useful for maintaining young and healthy skin as well as fundamental for a general state of health by helping to reduce cholesterol and triglyceride values (they in this regard, a defense action against cardiovascular diseases).

We have also seen how cold green tea can be an ally for losing weight, when included in a healthy and balanced diet. There are many substances contained in this type of tea, thanks to which it is possible to experience an increase in metabolic activity, a diuretic action (important against water retention) and a reduction in the stimulus of hunger.

In addition to these properties, iced green tea is a refreshing and thirst-quenching drink, excellent for the hottest days of summer. Avoid drinks rich in sugar from the supermarket and prefer homemade iced green tea, genuine and very simple to prepare with the best loose green teas on sale, coming from the best tea gardens in the world.

Tips on Preparing Iced Green Tea: Lemon, Ginger and Mint

We recommend drinking natural iced green tea without sugar. To prepare a tasty summer drink, you can however add other ingredients to the cold infusion. During the infusion you can for example add fresh mint leaves or slices of ginger to the tea leaves, or add squeezed lemon to the ready infusion at the moment, or sweeten to taste if you prefer a more sugary taste, with honey or other natural syrups, which go particularly well (and better than sugar!) with the flavor of green tea.

Let your imagination run wild and find the combination that's best for you!

Cold Infusion of Green Tea: Which Teas to Choose?

There are different types of green tea to choose from based on personal taste which, however, can be customized with the addition of lemon juice, sugar or spices. Japanese green teas are very suitable for cold brewing.

You can consult the section dedicated to cold teas to be prepared with one of the cold infusion methods described, and choose your favourite.

The cold brew method allows you to easily prepare cold herbal teas and iced teas of all types at home, with which to refresh your summer. Try green teas to make cold now and refresh your summer immediately!