Cool Your Jets: With Iced Tea
Iced Tea—it’s what’s for dinner.
All right, so that slogan has already been taken; but no one will argue that in this hot weather, it is important to have a nice glass of iced tea. It cools the body while stimulating the mind. It will certainly be the most popular drink of choice at all your summer shindigs.
Chances are that you’ve had a glass of iced tea before. We are not on Mars. But I know good tea—iced or otherwise—and it is my whim to alert you to some of my favorite ways of brewing come delicious iced tea.
Loose leaf tea is the only kind of tea you want, as has been said before, Use a tea infuser, tea ball, or strainer, and put in whatever kind of tea you prefer. Black tea is the most common, but use herbal or fruit, or even green tea, if that’s your preference.
The actual brewing process is the same as with hot tea . The only difference is use twice as many tea leaves—meaning two teaspoons per six ounces of water. For larger leaf teas you could use even more. Let the tea steep as you would normally. When the tea is ready, dilute it by adding water—usually the same amount as you used to brew it. Add ice, and viola! Iced tea.
There are, of course, other creative things that can be done with iced tea. Drop in a cinnamon stick, a lemon peel, or a bit of mint as the tea steeps. Or add your favorite fruit juice, lemon, or mint to give it even more zing.
Here’s an idea: to keep your iced tea cold without watering down the flavor, make some tea ice cubes for later. You could even put a berry in there too. So nice on a hot day.
If you like your iced tea sweet, be sure and use a syrup by boiling it in water first and then adding it to the tea. This will keep it from sinking straight to the bottom of the pitcher.
Finally, don’t forget that tea starts to lose its full flavor after a couple of days, so drink it before then. This shouldn’t be too hard if you’ve followed my words. On a hot summer day, nothing else could beat it!
Tags: brewing, cold, flavor, fruit juice, iced, iced tea, lemon, loose leaf, loose tea, summer, sweet tea, tea, water
