Rinsing green tea? (esp. sencha)

[Chip]

Cold brewed sencha anyone?

I try not to think about tea pickers' potty breaks.

[Geekgirl]

Considering that tea itself has anti-parasitic and anti-bacterial properties, it's probably pretty safe.

[Smells_Familiar]

Chip, you're cracking me up!

and no, I don't rinse my sencha.

[chamekke]

Anyway, think of all the great protein you'd get from ingesting those tough little bugs.

[BryanP]

No. I don't find any need to.

[chrl42]

Umm, tea tree is very vulnerable plant to bugs.
So sterilizer is often sprayed..tea cultivators would shake their head to grow such sophicated plant, it's not difficult to witness tea trees grown in environment of a jungle of weeds, flying bugs or larva. What about huminity, temperature or water supply? There is a reason why tea trees are only grown in Asia, it's not like growing potatoes, wheats..

As tea consuming rate rises, it's inevitable to rely on machines, scissors, sterilizer for mass production.

Almost every green tea sellers in China rinse the leaf once, Puerh twice. Except some chosen quality teas.

[Wesli]

I would never rinse any of my sencha from Japan. I haven't before, but I would consider throwing a quick rinse over Chinese greens. More than once, I've seen Chinese distributors giving advice to rinse every tea the sell.

[chrl42]

I would never rinse any of my sencha from Japan. I haven't before, but I would consider throwing a quick rinse over Chinese greens. More than once, I've seen Chinese distributors giving advice to rinse every tea the sell.

And you assume Sencha doesn't get sprayed?

[hop_goblin]

I gues its best not to rinse, the only thing is that im quite paranoid about parasites and so on

From what I have read (and I am no doctor, I admit), people contract parasites mostly from meat and fish, not usually from plants like tea.

Besides, even flash rinsing Sencha at boiling will deaden the flavor....

I am not worried about microbes as I am just wanting to eliminate some pesticide and dust. When I rinse I typically will rinse the leaves in warm water for a couple of seconds.. No harm to the tea and it prevents any of the goodness to leech out.

[Pentox]

I would never rinse any of my sencha from Japan. I haven't before, but I would consider throwing a quick rinse over Chinese greens. More than once, I've seen Chinese distributors giving advice to rinse every tea the sell.

And you assume Sencha doesn't get sprayed?

Personally I don't doubt that the tea gets sprayed by insecticides and what not, but I'm not one to be overly concerned with that. And at the same time I doubt that anything sprayed on the plants as an insecticide would come off of the leaves with a quick rinsing. Especially considering the amount of rolling/curling/etc that goes into sencha most of the original leaf surface area is not exposed to an initial blast of water. I would also venture to say that a certain degree of said products would be absorbed into the plant and would come out during steeping.

[Smells_Familiar]

Personally I don't doubt that the tea gets sprayed by insecticides and what not, but I'm not one to be overly concerned with that. And at the same time I doubt that anything sprayed on the plants as an insecticide would come off of the leaves with a quick rinsing. Especially considering the amount of rolling/curling/etc that goes into sencha most of the original leaf surface area is not exposed to an initial blast of water. I would also venture to say that a certain degree of said products would be absorbed into the plant and would come out during steeping.

Oh, some of the pesticide/herbicide residues and dust would certainly come off in a rinse. Not all, but some. Anyway, there's no harm in a quick rinse, especially the way Hop does it. The reason I'm not in a habit of rinsing my greens is because most all of my daily teas are organic..so no rinse, although I doubt it would hurt anything if I did rinse. Hmm, rinse rinse rinse....rinse and rinse.

[inspectoring]

the pesticide/herbicide debate always makes me nervous. I try to make most of my purchases from reputable stores such as ito-en and rishi. But nevertheless, I am worried and have lately decided that for the teas I drink 4-5 times a day - I am going to have to go organic.

I also heard about heavy metals - which is a whole new mess as well. I think this was discussed elsewhere on this forum. However, as these debates go, I don't think anyone was able to make convincing arguments.

[Chip]

My understanding regarding insecticides is that it is advantageous to buy first flush teas. Insecticides are rarely applied in the very limited time before a first flush is harvested. The buds pop, and within a very short time are harvested.

So there is rarely pesticides on these tender new leaves.

It is the summer and dormant season when a lot of pesticides are applied. IMHO.

[Pentox]

the pesticide/herbicide debate always makes me nervous. I try to make most of my purchases from reputable stores such as ito-en and rishi. But nevertheless, I am worried and have lately decided that for the teas I drink 4-5 times a day - I am going to have to go organic.

I'm curious, how does buying your tea from ito-en or rishi seem any different than any other sencha vendor? Unless you're going for something tagged organic, I don't think that you're going to find any difference especially at that level of the vendor. Considering how the farmer > processor > blender > export system works I would think that any change in finding pesticides would be at the farmer level. I guess that based on who the blender is they may choose favorites for their farmers, but I think they're more concerned with flavor over pesticides.

[inspectoring]

Pentox - I just thought that big names may be more concerned with the image of the company and therefore be more concerned with how their teas are grown. Obviously I have no knowledge of how the teas are made/blended. I always assumed that one particular batch came from one farm/property.


Well then - I am still considering switching back to organics. I have never tasted any organic sencha. I will have to get some from hibiki or o-cha or rishi.

I simply wish that I really did not have to worry about the pesticides/heavy metals/etc when it comes to my only addiction in life.