Making iced tea
You don't need much to make your own iced tea. Apart from the tea you like, you really only need ice and depending on your wishes and taste you can use ice, syrup, fresh fruit and herbs.
Methods
There are different methods and here we list the most important ones that you can use at home.
Cooling down
The simplest way to make iced tea is to let it cool. There are 2 drawbacks to this method. You need time and the tea (especially green and black tea) sometimes gets a bit cloudy.
This method is certainly suitable for herbal and fruit teas (infusion of only herbs and/or fruit without real tea). You can also put a pot, drink a cup and let the rest cool. All correct.
Shock Brew
Our favorite because nice and fast. Just pay attention and calculate carefully with the amount of tea you use.
1. Make tea with half the water you would normally use. E.g. 1/2 litre. Take the normal amount of loose leaf tea. 12-15 grams is a good average for 1 liter of tea.
2. Let the tea steep for as long as necessary. Green tea 2 minutes. Black tea 2-4 minutes and herbs, rooibos and fruits: 5-10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, fill a 2nd teapot with just as much ice as you used water in step 1. So 1/2 liter (= 500 grams) in this example.
4. When the tea has steeped enough, pour it over the ice in the other teapot. Do you only have 1 jar? No worries. Then you put ice in tea glasses and pour the hot tea in it.
Cold brew / Ambient brew
You can also make tea with cold water (cold brew) and water at room temperature (ambient brew). Because the temperature of the water is much lower, you need much more time. Not minutes but hours. Not very practical, but there are teas, such as Japanese green tea, that only give a good taste with the ambient brew.
It's easy. In the evening you put tea in a bottle of water, let it steep overnight and the next day you have cold tea.
Season and Serve
Cold tea alone may be fine for some people. But most of us still want something extra. Combinations with fruit, fresh herbs, sugar (or honey or agave syrup) give a more exciting tea in terms of taste.
If you add sugar, do so while the tea is still warm. Syrups are easier, you just mix them with the tea and don't have to dissolve. Homemade syrup is the best!
And you can serve it in a long glass, a special cocktail glass, with extra fruit, etc. Have fun!
Vegetable garden fruit IceTea
With our own Moestuinfruit ( No.152 Moestuinfruit ) you can make a delicious summer tea with apple, raspberries and berries.
Dong Ding Cold Brew
Dong Ding (or Jade Oolong) from Taiwan is a wonderfully subtle oolong tea with wonderful floral aromas. Make it simple by putting a bar of leaves in a jar or bottle with cold water. After a few hours in the fridge, you have a tasty alternative to pure water. And you can use the tea leaves until they no longer give off any flavour.
Other oolongs are also suitable, such as Da Hong Pao and Tie Guan Yin .
Earl Gray Ice Tea cocktail
Earl Gray tea has a citrusy taste and is delicious to combine with lime, lemon and/or orange in an iced tea or mocktail.
Use the Shock Brew method as described above. You can choose eleven proportions of tea and fruit. Here's an example we like.
1. Make iced tea with Earl Gray using the basic Shock Brew recipe, as above.
2. Squeeze 1 lime and half a lemon and add to the ice in step 3 of the basic recipe. Cut the other lemon half into slices and add that too.
3. If desired, flavor with a sweetener of your choice, such as agave syrup or lemon lemonade.
4. Complete the recipe and serve the tea ice cold. The tea can be stored in the refrigerator for a day or two.
Pretty Pink Grapefruit
With our Grapefruit and Dragonfruit tea it is also wonderful to make mocktails. The purple dragon fruit cubes give a nice color and the bitter grapefruit is a nice counterpart to the sweet taste of this iced tea. You can find the recipe with the tea.
Sweet Cherry
Brew a liter of tea from No. 334 Kiwi, Cherry & Coconut IceTea . Use 10 teaspoons of fruit tea, about 25 grams, and water at 100°C. Let the tea steep for at least 15 minutes.
Put the tea in a large jug with 500 grams of ice and let the tea cool down.
Add 500 ml of cold water, possibly sparkling if you like it. Use cherries with a stem and a sprig of mint for decoration.
Apple smash
Delicious apple-lime iced tea with basil. For this tea you use our Apple tea with yogurt and lime .
1. Take 7-8 teaspoons of tea, add a liter of boiling hot water and let the tea steep for a long time (45 minutes).
2. Put the tea in a large pitcher (1.5 liters or more) with ice and let the tea cool completely.
3. Cut a lime and a fresh green Granny Smith apple into slices and add them to the tea together with a handful of basil leaves. Let steep for another hour.
Now the tea is ready to serve.
Melon Mint Bowl
A delicious fruit bowl of super thirst-quenching melon tea.
- Make fruit tea from No.332 Melon & Elderflower . Use 1 liter of boiling hot water and about 25 grams of tea. Let the tea steep for 15 minutes.
- Fill a large jug with ice (about 500 grams) and add the brewed tea. Let the tea cool completely.
- Add melon cubes (different types!), mint and slices of lemon or lime to the tea and top up the jug with cold water.
Serving tip: looks great in a hollowed-out melon.