Instant green tea is ideal when you don’t have time to brew tea or when you want to make iced tea. You no longer have to let tea cool off. What’s more, this “ready-to-go” tea is often available in different flavors, sweetened or unsweetened versions.

High in sugar or sweeteners

Although these versions often taste good, try to buy only HIGH-QUALITY prepared green tea, containing real green tea extract, such as Matcha green tea powder and less to no sugar or sweeteners. For example, Lipton also offers “ready-to-go” green tea but it’s high in sugar and chemicals.

Fewer antioxidants

Besides the sweeteners or added sugars, another reason to prefer loose green tea over instant green tea is that the second version contains fewer antioxidants.

Generally speaking, more processing means less antioxidants – polyphenols catechins and flavonoids – and instant tea is more processed than brewed (loose) tea.

If you go to loose green tea you’ll find a comparison between loose green tea and green tea bags in regards to the in-cup concentrations of polyphenols. This overview applies to the instant version of green tea as well.

Antioxidants protect your body against tissue damage from free radicals which could otherwise lead to cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure and so on. Go to green tea and health or green tea and cancer for more on this!

According to a 2007 report by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), 100 grams of BREWED green tea contains on average 77,81 mg epigallocatechin 3-gallate (EGCG) whereas prepared INSTANT diet tea only contained on average 0,49 mg EGCG.

That’s a MASSIVE difference!

Check out LOOSE green tea.

What about another green tea PRODUCT?

Discover your favorite green tea RECIPES!

Check out green tea FAT BURNER.

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Sources

USDA (homepage on the Internet). USDA Database for the Flavanoid Content of Selected Foods Release 2.1. 1997.