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Best Organic Green Tea in Dubai
This organic green tea, grown at an altitude of 1,600 meters, offers a delicate and luminous infusion, ideal for lovers of natural and refined teas.
The thick and dense infusion envelops you in aroma and a bright taste with a languid herbal note.
A jewel of Japanese tea. Organic Gyokuro, a famous shaded tea, reveals a bright green infusion rich in umami and subtle melon and pistachio notes.
This is a legendary green tea. The ivory leaves have an intoxicating floral aroma. The smooth taste, with natural notes of flowers and melon, leaves a refreshing aftertaste.
This Korean green tea, lightly toasted, is perfect for lovers of gourmet and refined flavors.
Organic Superior Yun Wu Cha Green Tea: A journey to the heart of the Lu mountains. This rare green tea, grown in the misty mountains of Mount Lu in China, invites you to discover delicate floral flavors and a clear, transparent liquor. A tea with a pure and smooth taste, perfect for lovers of fine and refined teas.
Ingredients: green tea China Yin Xiang, white tea China Silvery Needle, green tea China Sweet Osmanthus, white tea Ya Bao.
Green tea is unoxidised tea. Within hours of picking, the leaf is heated to shut down the enzymes that would otherwise turn it brown, which is why it stays green and why it tastes of the fresh plant rather than of malt or fruit. How that heating is done splits the entire category in two, and it is the single most useful thing to understand before buying.
Cantata carries green tea from China, Japan, Korea, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, loose in 50 g, 100 g and 250 g packs, starting at AED 21. Flavoured green tea and matcha are listed separately.
Steamed or pan-fired: the difference that matters
Japanese green tea is steamed. The leaf is passed through steam within hours of picking. Steaming preserves chlorophyll and the savoury amino acid character, so Japanese tea is deep green, brothy, marine and thick in texture. Sencha, gyokuro, kukicha and matcha are all steamed.
Chinese green tea is pan-fired. The leaf is heated in a dry wok, which adds a light roasted note on top of the fresh one. Chinese tea is paler, clearer, sweeter and more floral, with a chestnut or toasted-grain edge. Huangshan Mao Feng, Chao Qing and Bai Hao teas are all pan-fired, and the full range sits in the Chinese tea collection.
Neither is better. They are different drinks. If you have tried green tea and disliked it, there is a fair chance you tried only one of the two.
Japanese green tea
- Gyokuro Organic is the top of the Japanese range. The bushes are shaded from sunlight for roughly three weeks before picking, which forces the plant to produce more L-theanine and less catechin. The result is low in bitterness and heavy in umami, with the melon and pistachio notes shaded tea is known for. It is also the fussiest tea in the catalogue to brew, and it does not tolerate hot water.
- Sencha Superior is the everyday Japanese green tea, unshaded, grassy and clean, with a fast finish.
- Japan Kukicha is made from stems and leaf ribs rather than leaf blades. Stems carry more theanine and less caffeine, so kukicha is sweeter, lighter and far gentler in the evening than a standard sencha.
Chinese green tea
- Huangshan Mao Feng comes from the Yellow Mountains in Anhui province and is one of China’s named famous teas. Fine downy leaf, orchid aroma, and a clean sweetness that carries into the aftertaste.
- Bai Hou White Monkey is a Fujian green tea picked as bud and single leaf, covered in white down, gentle and floral.
- Chao Qing is the pan-fired workhorse, denser and more herbaceous, and it takes repeated infusions well.
- Legend of the Dragon blends Chinese green and white leaf with osmanthus, and Hidden Dragon combines green tea with chrysanthemum and lotus flower.
Korean and other origins
- Joongjak BIO is Korean organic green tea, lightly pan-roasted, with a nutty and slightly sweet profile that sits between the Chinese and Japanese styles.
- Ceylon Highland Organic is green tea from Sri Lankan bushes at around 1,600 metres, unusual because most Sri Lankan leaf becomes black tea. Lighter and more delicate than most Chinese green.
- Gaba Vietnam is processed in a nitrogen-rich, oxygen-free environment, a technique developed in Japan in the 1980s that converts glutamic acid in the leaf into gamma-aminobutyric acid. It tastes fruity and slightly sour, closer to an oolong than to a standard green.
How green tea is made
Every step in green tea production exists to stop oxidation and then protect what was saved. It is also the framework Cantata buys on: leaf shape, rolling density, which fixation method was used, residual moisture, and how readily the leaf gives up its flavour in water.
How to brew green tea without making it bitter
Green tea turns bitter for one reason more than any other: the water is too hot. Boiling water strips catechins out of the leaf faster than the sweeter compounds, and the balance never recovers.
| Tea | Water | Leaf | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gyokuro | 50 to 60 °C | 4 g per 100 ml | 2 minutes |
| Sencha | 70 to 80 °C | 3 g per 200 ml | 1 minute |
| Kukicha | 80 °C | 3 g per 200 ml | 1 minute |
| Chinese green (Mao Feng, Bai Hou) | 75 to 80 °C | 3 g per 200 ml | 2 to 3 minutes |
| Chao Qing | 80 to 85 °C | 3 g per 200 ml | 2 minutes |
| Korean Joongjak | 70 to 80 °C | 3 g per 200 ml | 1 to 2 minutes |
In a mug or teapot
2 to 3 g per 200 ml at the temperature above, 1 to 3 minutes. Works in a cup, a teapot or a French press. The most forgiving method and the right one for everyday drinking.
In a gaiwan
4 to 5 g per 100 ml, 70 to 85 °C, and steeps measured in seconds rather than minutes: roughly 5 seconds for the first, building towards 60 as you go. Five to seven infusions from one measure of leaf, each tasting different from the last. This is where an expensive tea earns its price.
Pour-over
4 to 5 g per 200 ml, 70 to 85 °C, poured through the leaf so contact time is almost nothing. It suits tightly rolled leaf that would over-extract if left to steep, and it is worth trying if you already own coffee equipment.
If you have no thermometer, boil the kettle and leave it uncovered for four to five minutes. That drops most kettles to around 80 °C in an air-conditioned room. Pouring boiled water into a cold second vessel drops it roughly 5 to 10 °C as well. Green tea is worth re-steeping. Most of these will give three infusions, and the second is often the best one. Increase the time by about 30 seconds each round.
What green tea actually tastes like
Because the leaf never oxidises, green tea keeps compounds that black tea converts away: chlorophyll, catechins and theanine. Three things show up in the cup.
- Floral and fresh-cut notes, from linalool and geraniol alongside the grassy character of hexenal compounds
- A savoury, almost broth-like quality from glutamic acid, aspartic acid and theanine, strongest in shaded Japanese teas
- A sweetness that arrives after you swallow, from simple sugars and pectins in young leaf
Astringency is normal in green tea and is not the same thing as bitterness. Astringency is a drying sensation on the tongue and belongs there. Bitterness is a taste, and it usually means the water was too hot.
Cold brewing green tea
Cold brewing suits the climate and it removes the temperature problem completely. Cold water extracts theanine and simple sugars readily but extracts catechins and caffeine slowly, so a cold-brewed green tea is sweet, thick and barely bitter, with noticeably less caffeine than the same leaf brewed hot.
Use 10 g of leaf per litre of cold water, refrigerate for six to eight hours, then strain. Blends made specifically for this method are in the cold brew tea range. Sencha and gyokuro are outstanding this way. Drink within two days.
Caffeine and L-theanine
Green tea contains caffeine, usually 20 to 45 mg per 250 ml cup, which is roughly half to two-thirds of a comparable black tea. It also contains L-theanine, an amino acid found in almost no other common food. Shaded teas such as gyokuro carry substantially more of it, which is why they taste sweeter and savoury rather than astringent.
Green tea is studied heavily for its catechin content, and epigallocatechin gallate in particular. Findings across that research are mixed and much of it is preliminary, so treat confident health claims about green tea, from anyone, with caution. If you have a medical condition or take regular medication, ask a doctor rather than a tea seller.
Buying green tea from Cantata
Cantata’s green teas are sourced through long-standing supply relationships, including Changsha Tea Good Company for Chinese classic grades. Everything is sold loose by weight in three pack sizes, and the Al Barsha Cantata boutique will brew a cup of anything in the range so you can taste before deciding. Pots, infusers and travel flasks are stocked alongside.
- Free UAE delivery over AED 200
- Same-day Dubai delivery on orders placed before 2 PM
- Organic and BIO-certified options across the Japanese, Korean and Sri Lankan range
Related collections
- Matcha for stone-ground Japanese green tea powder
- Flavoured green tea for jasmine, fruit and floral blends on a green base
- Chinese tea for the full pan-fired Chinese range plus oolong and yellow tea
- Oolong tea for partially oxidised leaf between green and black
- Cold brew tea for blends built for iced brewing
- Herbal tea and infusions for caffeine-free alternatives
Storing green tea
Green tea is the most fragile tea there is. It loses its aroma to oxygen, light, heat and moisture faster than any other type, and in Dubai all four are working against you.
- Airtight, opaque container from the storage boxes range. Not a glass jar on an open shelf.
- Room temperature, away from the cooker and away from anything aromatic.
- Buy in 50 g or 100 g rather than 250 g unless you drink it daily.
- Use Japanese green tea within about six months of opening. Chinese green tea holds a little longer.
Unopened vacuum or foil packs can go in the freezer, but once a pack is opened, freezing does more harm than good because of condensation.