Sip Sip Horray! part II

All about cold brewing coffee and tea

Well hello again!

This week my friends, we're double clicking on cold brewing. It's too warm for hot bevvies, and so my obsession with chilled drinks continues to find intriguing arenas.

Cold brewing coffee is bodaciously good. Feels like fireworks through my veins. No barista or brow-buckling implement required. Instead of relying on heat to extract the flavour from the coffee beans, you’ll be relying on an overnight tango with cold water. When you wake, simply strain and serve over ice. The result is a smoother, sweeter kava with an unexpected smack of Mozart.

Health divas (like me) will find the addition of green tea to our cold brewing party irresistible. Disclaimer: green tea does not naturally excite me. It tastes like I'm drinking a mowed lawn. However, I rather fancy all the nutritional fuss and have alchemised various ways of sneaking it into my orbit, like in this cold brew green tea coffee. My January Zoom-ees will be total pros at this by now (you know who you are, lovelies!) I'm all about upgrading my daily cup of kava, servicing my mainframe in as many ways as possible.

photographed by Joanne Murphy

We like green tea for its freight of L-theanine, an amino acid shown to highjump the blood-brain barrier and hotwire our mood. Yes please. Neuroscientist Dr Andrew Huberman is theanine’s number one fan (more on Huberman’s research next week). Theanine tickles an important neurotransmitter called GABA, helping calm mental and physical stress as well as contribute to better sleep. There's also a hefty swag of polyphenols in green tea (and a unique squadron of polyphenols found in coffee beans grown on high altitude). Polyphenols are like powerful antioxidants in the body. What’s so bad about oxidants? They enjoy oxidising our cells, which in turn start to vandalise their environment. Pah! No thanks! I'm all for recruiting more polyphenols.