Iced Tea
Shannon’s friend from work gave us a bunch of plants for the garden this weekend, among them were five large mint plants. I potted three and added them around the beets and carrots, which is supposed to help with something, I don’t know what, companion planting still kind of confuses me, and then chopped up the other two for iced tea. Two bushels of mint sure looks like a lot until you start polishing away two liters of iced tea on a daily basis.
In my opinion, iced tea is better cold brewed. Hot water brings out the bitterness in teas and, obviously, takes longer to cool off afterward. You can leave a couple of black tea bags in cold water for hours and it won’t become bitter. You can drink cold tea just like that, but I, like most people, like to add a bit of sugar. The downside with adding sugar to cold tea is that it doesn’t dissolve easily, so you have to make a syrup by dissolving the sugar in hot water first. That, or use Splenda, which is what I tend to do, because it dissolves instantly into cold water. How much sugar should you add? Well, that’s for you to decide. I don’t tell you how much sugar to add to your coffee, if at all, I’m not going to tell you how much to add to your iced tea!
Though there are obviously some exceptions, most teas (and tisanes) that you’d drink hot make a refreshing tea cold. My preference is for straight black (I used Tazo Awake for this) or green teas, but fruity flavors are nice as well, even to mix and match. Whatever you use, it will be infinitely better than the “juice crystal” powdered stuff and much better for you.
- 2 tea bags
- 1 liter cold, filtered water
- (optional) 1 cup mint leaves
- juice of 1 lemon
- sugar or Splenda
- Steep the tea bags in the cold water. The steeping process will take longer with cold water than hot, but the flavor of the tea will be less astringent.
- If using mint, it is important that you bash them or rub them between your fingers to release the essential oils. Add these to the tea while it is steeping as well.
- Add the juice of a lemon and adjust the sweetness as necessary using Splenda or a mixture of sugar dissolved in a scant quantity of boiling water.