My Glucose Levels and Green Tea

I've been experimenting with green tea lately to see what effects drinking it has on my blood glucose levels. It really works at lowering my levels, but it depends on how and when I drink it.  It doesn't work as well as a prophylactic (ie having it before meals), but has its best effect when I have one or two (more so with two) cups of tea after meals.  It tends to drop my glucose levels by two full points - for example if I was at 8.4, it drops it down to 6.4 or lower.  It also works best when I adhere to a low carb diet and do some moderate exercise such as Tai Chi.

I have found that drinking green tea allows me to have the occasional treat. To allow this without having my glucose go sky high, first my starting glucose level has to be in the 6's. I have only a small serving, and then follow up with two cups of green tea and some Tai Chi exercise.

I've found that all green teas are not alike.  I've found a few brands of tea that work quite well, and a couple that don't, sadly.  What I've tested so far and have had good results with:

Tetley - both their plain green tea and any green tea with other herbs,
Madura (an Australian brand),
Twinings of London.
Temple of Heaven Gunshot Green Tea (a loose tea)

I haven't yet tried Celestial Seasonings, and Lipton of the brand name teas. 

What doesn't work so far are Clipper and Nazirs.  These don't make much of a difference in my glucose levels. The Nazir tea tastes quite good, while the Clipper teas have great added flavours/herbs but no matter how I prepare the tea it's always bitter.  I'll update this list if I find others to avoid.

The gunshot tea is neat - it comes in a little tiny 'pebble' form, and once water is added it unfolds into tea leaves. I've found that I can re-use the same leaves twice and still get good results. Three times is definitely not the charm though.  Still considering I use a little under a teaspoon per 2 cups and even the small package I bought will last a fair while, it's a bargain at $3 a box.

My current experiment is with making ice tea. Since I bought a few different boxes of the Clipper tea and it has interesting flavours but doesn't do much to reduce my glucose levels, I'm using it as a flavouring and make a pot of tea using 3 Tetley green tea bags and one clipper bag.  This tea is brewed for several hours and put in the fridge.  I then use half a glass of tea and half fizzy diet lemonade. It tastes as nice as some of the iced green teas I tried in the USA on my last visit.  However, I need to experiment to see what number of tea bags to brew so that it gives the same benefit as a cup of hot green tea.