Everyone has heard that green tea is rich in antioxidants. But did you know that green tea brewed with ice cold water contains different chemicals than that brewed with hot water? Ice cold water below 4 degrees Celcius allows tea leaves to release more yumminess (i.e. Theanin), and EGC (epigallocatechin), super immune system booster!

It also tastes milder because bitter EGCG (Epigallocatechin gallate) is not released this way. Caffein is also hardly extracted under 4 degrees, which makes it appropriate for children, pregnant/lactating women, and anyone else who has an issue with caffein. You can safely consume this tea in the evening, too.

EGC, the unique chemical in cold brew green tea, is NOT THE SAME as EGCG: it is known to stimulate macrophage in our bodies, which is a large phagocytic cell found in stationary form in the tissues or as a mobile white blood cell, especially at sites of infection. It's like giving extra firepower to your immune system for pathogens attacking your body.

Macropharge cells are cool - they eat whatever the foreign matters come inside your body. Also, they can store information about those previously attacked foreign matters. So next time macropharge cells are confronted with them, they can deal with them much faster!

You may be asking yourself why we should be ignoring EGCG now, which is the strongest antioxidant chemical in green tea! I AM NOT SAYING THAT!!!

If you have no issue with caffein, then you should first make tea with ice cold water, extract EGC as much as you can, THEN use the same tea leaves to brew hot tea to get EGCG.

Another cool hack for you: before brewing green tea with hot water, grind some shiso or mint leaves and mix with the green tea leaves and leave for 30 minutes. The enzyme inside converts catechins to theaflavin and thearubigin, which reduces the absorption of fat and sugar.... a perfect solution for weightloss :)

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Here is HOW to make it.... (sorry it is not very exciting though!)

1. Water chilled below 4 degrees Celcius
2. Loose green tea leaves (better choose organic one!)

That's it!

The easiest way to make it:

• 100ml ice-cold water in a tea pot
• 10g loose green tea
• A tea pot

"Brew" the tea for 5 minutes in the fridge, use ice cold water. Normally I either used chilled water from the fridge, OR throw in some ice cubes into water. After the second time, you can just keep on adding ice-cold water and wait for 5 seconds. You can brew tea many times!

But for people like me, who wants to drink LOTS of green tea every day, you can make a bigger batch. Chill a liter of water in a jar overnight, then put loose tea in a tea bag and leave it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

You can use one of those tea bags to keep the loose tea or it can be filtered. In Thailand, you can get the disposable one at Daiso. Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Daiso-Japan-Filter-3-7x2-8inch-100pcs/dp/B00DWYN3BY

Once you are done with ice-cold brew tea, use it to make hot green tea to benefit from super anti-oxidant EGCG and caffein!

If you are looking for affordable Japanese green tea leaves from Uji, Kyoto, click here! you can get 40% discount with the coupon "lovegreen"!!!