Green tea is a popular drink of choice for many people—even coffee drinkers. Now here’s an idea, have you considered adding green tea to your coffee? Now you might be asking yourself, is that even possible and how would it taste?
Coffee already comes in many flavors like french vanilla, hazelnut, and mocha. So, green tea-flavored coffee isn’t that big of a deal. Before looking into how coffee and green tea can go together, let’s take a look at what green tea is first.
What is green tea?
Whenever someone brings up green tea, relaxation and health usually come to mind. Green tea can be traced all the back to China at around 2737 B.C. It came to the west around the 19th century and it’s been a hit since.
Now, green tea can be found just about everywhere. It comes in its natural tea leaf form, powdered, premade, and in other forms. Green tea has even found its way into supplement products because of its proposed health benefits.
Potential health benefits?
Over the last couple of decades, green tea has grown in popularity because of its potential health benefits. It’s been said that green tea has the following health benefits:
- Improve brain function
- Protecting against various types of cancer
- Lowering the risk of conditions like heart disease
- Fat loss
Green tea is also loaded with antioxidants to help support your immune system. In a way, green tea has some synergy with the benefits of coffee. For this reason, some people like to mix the two into one super drink!
Is it brewed the same as coffee?
Well, this depends on what kind of green tea you get. If you have loose-leaf green tea, then the process is a bit different from coffee. The same is true for powdered and green tea bags.
Loose leaf green tea
With loose leaf green tea, you place the leaves in a pot, pour in hot water (160°F to 180°F), and let the leaves steep for 1 to 3 minutes. Some green tea drinkers have this down to a science and each one has a different temperature and steep time that’s right for them.
Powdered green tea
For powdered green tea, the process is much simpler. You just add some of the green tea powder to the water. The amounts will vary with how much green tea you’re looking to make.
Green tea bags
This method is very similar to steeping loose leaves. This method is more suited to small cups of tea. All you do is steep a tea bag in a mug or teacup of hot water. Once it’s been a few minutes, remove the tea bag and enjoy.
Can you sweeten green tea?
Adding things like lemon juice, raw honey, some sugar, or Sativa is very common. This is where green tea shares a lot with coffee and why mixing it is a great idea. Not only can they both be sweetened but they’re both sweetened by similar things.
Is it safe to add green tea to coffee?
Yes, absolutely. Coffee and tea share similar health benefits and are regularly consumed side by side. It’s unclear when green tea and coffee were first mixed but some believe it originated in China. Much of the apprehension really comes from how coffee and tea will taste once it’s mixed.
What will coffee with green tea taste like?
Imagine a creamy, earthy, flavored coffee with hints of lemon and maybe a bit of sugar. Maybe you prefer your coffee black and your green tea plain. That’s fine too, but it would taste a bit bitter without some sweetener added to it.
This is a chance for you to experiment and let your imagination take over. The ways that you can mix green tea and coffee together are just as vast as the different coffee drinks out there. However you mix it, it’ll taste great.
Some green tea and coffee mixture ideas
To get you started, let’s look at some ways that you can mix the two drinks. The first method is a side-by-side method. This means that you have a mug of green tea and coffee next to each other. You sip one, then take a sip of the other. This method is great because you can add what you like to each one without overpowering the other.
Adding green tea powder to a cup of coffee
This method is pretty simple–you just add some green tea powder to some coffee that’s already brewed. The downside to this is that you should make sure that your coffee isn’t too hot. Green tea is infused in water at a lower temperature than coffee. If the temperature is too high, then it could mess with the flavor of the green tea.
Steeping some leaves or tea bags in coffee
Try steeping a tea bag or some leaves in a fresh cup of coffee. It should be hot enough to steep the tea properly. After a good steep, remove the tea bag or leaves, add whatever sweetener you would like, and enjoy.
Cold brew
If you’ve noticed a pattern of adding green tea to coffee, good, it’s on purpose. As mentioned before, green tea is infused in water at a lower temperature than coffee. This makes cold brewing coffee and green tea mix a viable option. Simply mix coffee and green tea leaves or powder together and cold brew as usual.
Summary
Mixing green tea and coffee together is not only viable, but it’s also popular. Green tea is a popular drink of choice, probably just as popular as coffee. The two drinks share similar health benefits and are sweetened by similar things like sugar and Sativa. They even share a trademark bitterness.
Mixing the two can be as easy as having each drink side by side or even by cold brewing. Mixing the two is totally safe and most people feel apprehension because they’re unsure of how it will taste. You have a lot of options out there so let your imagination take over and make something you like!
