Q: Is it okay to eat tea leaves?
A: The short answer is yes, now here's the long answer:
Some say that by eating steeped tea leaves you are increasing your intake of key vitamins and minerals found within the tea leaves. Although the chopped up tea dust found in many tea bags would unlikely give you any health benefit. Others suggest that since the key nutrients in tea leaves are water soluble, but pesticides are not it is a bad idea. Consuming too many tea leaves could also give you a huge boost of caffeine as well as stomach trouble.
Culturally Asian peoples with strong ties to tea tend to eat leaves for freshening the breath and cleansing the palate. Asian cuisine often uses tea leaves in recipes like in the instance of Burmese Tea Leaf Salad, which uses picked tea leaves also known as La Phet. "New Tastes in Green Tea" by Mutsuko Tokunaga is a cookbook based on the goodness of green tea and makes reference to eating leaves as you would any other cooked green vegetable or using them as a sort of topping to other dishes like rice or salads. Shinji Mae, a native of Japan who has now settled in the Portland area, reports that in Japan there is a tradition of eating tea leaves along with rice. He says, "It is called Chazuke [or Ochazuke]. It was more based on that people were poor and did not have food to eat with rice, so they put tea or tea leaves on rice for meals."
Shinji recommends it as, "a pretty good meal". If you are going to try your hand at making the dish look for specific tea bags just for Chazuke sold at your local Asain market. Another great recipe to try with left over tea leaves is Shrimp with Green Tea Leaves.
If you are more interested in just eating the tea leaves by themselves, here are a few suggestions:
- Steep before you eat.
- Stick to white or green; black tea is going to be pretty bitter.
- Buy organic- Local tea house Townshend's and the chain store FredMeyer both carry organic loose leaf tea.
Comments
This was very informative. Thank you.
I ate black tea leaves and I think it taste bitter at the first time trying but I like it after more and more try.. haha
The idea that pesticides are not water soluble is largely not correct. As a horticulturalist and former curator at a botanical garden I am quite familiar with a large array of pesticides and most if not all are water soluble, so steeping the tea is not likely to protect you. My suggestion is if you are going to eat tea leave buy organic ones just to be safe.
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