Five top types of green tea for health

There are many blends and varieties of green teas that you can buy, however what type is best for your overall health?
Here we count down the 5 most beneficial.

But before I commence, I want to explain that the antioxidant/nutrient level of virtually any tea can also be dependent on the growing conditions as well as the point in time at which the tea is gathered.

And despite the fact that all of these variables are frequently the ones that ultimately identify the 'type' of tea it is classed as, there nevertheless remains to be some amount of variation in nutrient/antioxidant concentrations within the different families of teas - dependant upon the quality of the tea .

5. Longjing

Longjing is a massively famous Chinese green tea, and the kind of leaf you will often find in supermarket and many popular blends of green tea.

Filled with vitamin C, amino acids, along with a strong amount of catechins, this particular variety of green tea also has further incarnations - that means the amount of aforementioned nutrients and vitamins can in fact vary from type-to-type of LongJing.

Bai Longjing (albeit technically not really a real LongJing tea), is claimed to be the one LongJing to deliver the most amino acid content.

4. Kukicha

Kukicha green tea is essentially a by-product of sencha or gyokuro tea (see no. 2) - consisting of stems, stalks along with twigs.

It is because of its simple, unrefined composition that it has become a popular staple of the 'macrobiotic diet' which specifically avoids the intake of processed or processed foodstuffs.

3. Schincha

Schincha is a Japanese green tea that essentially means 'new tea' i.e. the earliest, tender brand new leaves of the plant that develop at the begining of Spring.

Due to the fact the leaves are plucked so early on, they consist of concentrated nutrients that the tea plant has held onto through the winter season.

Although it features a high vitamin and amino acid content, catechin content is rather small (which has long been found to have cancer-fighting properties). So, over to our number 2 rated green tea for health qualities.

2. Gyokuro

Gyokuro is shade-grown for approximately the last 20 days of cultivation - allowing the plants to fill with a strong concentration of amino acids and vitamins.

Together with the health benefits, Gyokuro also contains a unique fragrance and fairly sweet flavour shared by our top rated standing green tea.

1. Matcha

Matcha is harvested in a very comparable way to Gyokuro. The key distinction occurs through the processing of the tea.

Matcha is actually ground on traditional stone-mills while Gyokuro is left to resemble a standard green tea (dried up foliage). Because of this, with matcha, you actually consume the tea leaves themselves.

And since the growth process allows these leaves to fill up with a content level of amino acids and vitamins, you obtain the immediate advantage of this with a level of potency equalled by not any other green tea.

Thus, there you have it, our top five green teas according to their health properties.