Make Cold-Brewed Tea at Home: Refreshing, Sweet Aftertaste, and Healthy

The lively Mid-Autumn Festival has just ended, and gatherings or barbecues inevitably involve eating high-salt or greasy foods. Drinking tea to cut the greasiness is a choice many people make. Cold-brewed tea, which has become popular in recent years, cuts oil and greasiness, is refreshing with a sweet aftertaste, and contains less caffeine, so there is no need to worry about being unable to sleep at night. It can also be made DIY at home, making it a good beverage choice.

Although cold-brewed tea is very common, many people are unclear about how to brew it correctly. Li Zhiren, an assistant researcher at the Wenshan Branch of the Tea Research and Extension Station under the Council of Agriculture, pointed out that many people mistakenly think cold-brewed tea means brewing tea with hot water and letting it cool, which is a completely wrong approach. Only by putting tea leaves into cold water can nutrients be released in the same way while caffeine and bitterness are halved. When tea is brewed with hot water, the caffeine has already been released quickly; even if it is left to cool, the caffeine in the tea liquid will not disappear.

As for how to make cold-brewed tea? Li Zhiren said that the best-tasting cold-brewed tea uses a ratio of tea leaves to water of 1:50. If time permits, he suggests that people brew tea with cold water at the same ratio, then refrigerate it overnight, so it can be drunk the next day when going to work or going out.