How to brew green tea without making it bitter

Green tea is heated soon after it is picked, which stops the leaf oxidising and keeps it green. In Japan the heat is usually steam; in China it is usually a hot pan or a drum. Either way, the leaf that reaches your pot is more delicate than black tea, and the commonest way to ruin it is to treat it like black tea.

The short version

Water: 65 to 80°C — never boiling. Time: two to three minutes. Those are Whittard of Chelsea's figures, and a good place to start. Leaf: Whittard's teaspoon, about 2 grams, per cup. The Japanese way is quicker and stronger: Ippodo, the Kyoto tea house, brews its everyday sencha with 10 grams of leaf to 210 ml at 80°C for sixty seconds.

Why not boiling water?

Boiling water pulls out the bitter, astringent compounds in green tea fast, and scalds the sweet, savoury flavour that is the reason to drink it. If you have no thermometer, do what Ippodo does and pour the water from one vessel to another: by its reckoning, boiling water poured once into a cup and then onto the leaves is at about 80°C, right for sencha, and three transfers bring it to the 60°C that gyokuro wants.

Japanese green teas

Steamed, often finely cut, and brewed quickly. Sencha, the everyday Japanese tea, wants 80°C and about a minute — see how to brew sencha. Gyokuro, shaded before picking, wants cooler water still and a little patience: Ippodo's standard brew is 10 grams in just 80 ml at 60°C, for ninety seconds. Matcha is not steeped at all but whisked: how to make matcha.

Chinese green teas

Pan-fired, usually whole-leaf, and a little more forgiving. Whittard's two to three minutes suits them in a pot; in China they are as often simply left in a tall glass and topped up as you drink. Dragon Well is the famous one, and has a guide of its own.

More than one infusion

Good green tea gives two or three infusions, often four. The second is usually brewed a little hotter and much faster than the first, because the leaf has already opened.