What Can Make Green Tea Taste Bitter

Why might your green tea taste bitter? There’s a chance this can happen when it is brewed incorrectly. At Free Your Tea, we love a cup of green tea to get us through the day.  It can be bold or smooth, herbaceous or vegetal, buttery or earthy. With the variety in flavor and the small boost of caffeine, we find it’s the best mid-day pick-me-up to get us to the finish line.  With so many wonderful flavors and benefits, we want to help you avoid a bitter cup of green tea.  Let’s look at some things you may be doing wrong. 

1. Water That is Too Hot Can Make Green Tea Taste Bitter

Before the water even hits the tea leaves, it’s possible that you’re already doing yourself a disservice depending on how you’ve heated your water.  This can make your cup of green tea taste bitter.  Green teas are more delicate than other varieties and typically need to steep at no higher than 175 F/80 C for the best results. Free Your Tea teas has precise recommended brewing temperatures to help you get it right.  This temperature will bring out the grassy, natural flavors in the tea without overpowering your taste buds. There are a few ways to achieve the perfect temperature when heating water, but we prefer a temperature controlled kettle to do the work for us.  You can also boil water and let it sit for about two minutes before adding to the tea, or mix in some cold water.

2. Using Too Much Tea Can Make Green Tea Taste Bitter

Secondly, it can be difficult to judge exactly how much tea leaves need to go into your cup.  This is made especially difficult when someone at your office steals your trusty mug and you’re left with an unfamiliar, tiny teacup.  Green tea leaves vary just as much by size which can impact proper measurement. Nevertheless, we recommend approximately one teaspoon of tea to one teacup of water. If using a big mug, you need more tea. If the tea leaves are larger so half your spoon is air, you need more tea.

3. Steeping for Too Long Can Make Green Tea Taste Bitter

After you’ve added the tea leaves to your precisely heated water, the process doesn’t end there.  Steeping for more than five minutes can over-saturate your cup of green tea and result in the much-dreaded bitterness.  We advise steeping green tea for 3-5 minutes before completely removing the infuser or straining the leaves. We like asking our mobile phone to set a timer to alert us when our tea is done.  Tea never gets better after 5 minutes, only worse.  

4. Old or Poor Quality Tea Can Make Green Tea Taste Bitter

Finally, and possibly most importantly, with all the impeccable green tea in the world from tea gardens in places like Darjeeling and Fujian, why drink bad tea? Lower quality bagged teas that you find in the grocery store are more likely to yield a bitter cuppa.  Even loose leaf tea that is improperly stored or old can take a turn for the worse.  Fortunately, Free Your Tea only delivers fresh, premium teas that save you the guesswork in the grocery aisle.  In fact, you won’t even need to waste your time in the grocery store! We can guarantee that our teas are picked and packaged in their prime, then protected from both oxygen and UV rays.  By delivering to your door every month, we keep you well-stocked for the month while rotating an exciting selection. When brewed according to the above guidelines, you won’t have to worry about that pesky bitterness.  

In the end, these are all just guidelines to making a perfect cup of tea.  Each tea is unique in its flavor profile, leaf size, and consistency. This can change the factors listed above.  Naturally, everyone also has their own preferences in tea flavor and intensity. We’re not knocking you if you enjoy your green tea on the bitter side.  We do encourage everyone to discover their own brewing method. For example, if iced tea is your thing, there are some great ways to cold brew a cup.  At Free Your Tea, we are all about personalization and customization precisely to your tastes.  We help you discover your favorite teas by delivering them straight to your door and leave the rest in your hands!

If you get a personalized tea subscription from Free Your Tea you will have new teas tailored to your taste every month for you to enjoy according to these brewing guidelines.

Any questions? Please contact us!

Enjoy your perfectly brewed green tea!