Cold-infused tea is very straight forward - Put your tea into fresh cold (room temperature) water and leave it for hours. But apart from cooling yourself down during the hot summer, why do we love it?
"Low caffeine, or nearly no caffeine."
We have a love-hate relationship with caffeine - we need it but we can't take it all day long (even though some of you'd love to). But for cold-infused tea (or cold brew tea), you can literally drink it for the whole day without caffeine jitters. Why?
" Water temperature directly affects the caffeine contents "
Caffeine content will dissolve into your caffeinated beverages (tea & coffee) with a higher water temperature. And vice versa. Caffeine also means astringency (bitterness), that is also why we use low temperature ( below 89 degree) to brew green tea.
So if you are sensitive to caffeine but still want to drink tea, try cold-infused tea! You won't get much (nearly nothing) caffeine from it.
Here are some tips for cold brewing tea
1. Choose a right infuser: fine mesh strainer or bio-degradable teabags
2. Use high quality tea leaf: The tastes will be smoother and sweeter. We've tested many types already. The taste of whole leaf tea is still the best.
3. Choice of tea: Green Tea, Roasted Oolong, High Mountain Green Oolong tea and White tea.
4. Fast cold-infused method:
-- Float the tea inside a bottle of fresh cold water ( about 1 Litter) for 30 mins, and transfer the whole bottle inside fridge to avoid germs and mold.
5. Time (depends on the form and types of tea)
-- Bulb-shape tea ( for example taiwanese style oolong): From 4 to 10 hours.
-- Stripe-shape tea ( for example Long-jing green): From 2 to 4 hours.
One last reminder
Like any other food, the spoilage process will also happen in tea when it's moist. We always suggest to take out the leaf after the first 10 hours, and finish the tea within 72 hours.
