Cold Brewed Green Tea

In the past I've experimented a bit with cold brewing coffee, with some success (actually, it's hard to tell, I'm not really much of a coffee drinker, and I only like it with enough milk and sugar that I probably can't tell good coffee from bad...).  The beverage I drink a lot of, though, is green tea.

This summer I've been making cold-brewed green tea.  A chilled Thermos of that is a wonderfully refreshing drink to carry around the hot city in the summer...

My basic recipe is:

2 tablespoons of loose Japanese Kokei-Cha green tea
24 oz refrigerated tap water (bearing in mind New York City water is good water)

I use a French coffee press to make it.

First, I pour the loose green tea in, then a little water, and slosh it around so the tea is well soaked, before adding the remaining water.

I let it refrigerate overnight, not being too careful about the time, but at least around 12 hours.  Sometimes I swirl it around before I go to bed, and sometimes in the morning, a few hours before I'm actually going to pour it out.

When pouring it out to drink, the bottom bit of it that's been on the tea the whole time tends to be quite bitter, so don't try to use every last ounce of it.

And that's it...

I'm not clear if the Kokei-Cha that I buy at Java Joe's, two blocks up the street here in Brooklyn, is what's listed on Wikipedia as Kukicha, or Konacha...  When I bought it the first time I thought I remembered the woman at the store saying it was made up of bits and pieces, including dust, which matches the konacha description, but the name is closer to kukicha...