Iced tea tips and recipes

1022373_iced_tea_1 Last July, I talked about infused water drinks, which make for refreshing summertime beverages and a nice change from the standards, because you can get so creative with them. This year, I thought I’d go a little more traditional and talk about iced tea recipes. Turns out there’s a lot more you can do with iced tea than you might think. Remember: in any tea recipe that calls for sugar, you can use plaque-fighting xylitol on a 1-1 ratio, or an artificial sweetener if you prefer.

Basics: How to make Iced Tea

Iced tea is definitely a Southern thang. Any decent restaurant in the Southeastern US must be able to make a good glass of iced tea. Outside that region, people may be less particular. It may even be you’ve never had a really good glass of iced tea. There are a number of ways to make a good tea, and different people will prefer different methods. The basic rules:

Tips:

Orange Pekoe tea is most traditional. Lipton or another grocery store brand in tea bags is absolutely fine – you don’t need gourmet stuff for this.
Plastic pitchers can affect the flavor of tea, so stick with glass.
Serve it chilled – don’t pour warm tea over ice cubes, as they’ll just melt and dilute the tea. Pour chilled tea from the fridge over ice cubes, and the tea will stay cool without getting diluted in the time it takes most people to finish a glass.
How much sweetener you like is up to you – there’s no hard and fast rule about this, even among Southerners.
If you find brewed tea bitter, add a pinch of baking soda.

Instructions:

Boil two quarts of water in a pot on the stove. (This is where you would add the baking soda mentioned above.)
After the water has boiled, put 10-16 regular size tea bags in. (You’re going to dilute this later.)
Remove the pot from heat and let the tea steep for about 5 minutes – definitely no more than 10.
Fill a gallon pitcher halfway with cold water.
Pour the hot tea into the half-filled pitcher.
Let it sit in the fridge, until it’s chilled (overnight is fine).
It’s preferable to serve it as soon as it’s chilled. The longer it sits beyond that point, the more the flavor changes in unpleasant ways. It’s better to make fresh tea every day. If that’s not practical for you, I find every other day is okay.

Getting creative with iced tea

The simplest way to jazz up iced tea is to use tea bags of various flavors. You can mix as many as you want. Just be sure there’s plenty of black tea in the mix (either orange pekoe bags, or flavored bags that use orange pekoe as a base) if you want it to still essentially taste like tea.

Sweetening with fruit juice. One of the very best iced teas I’ve ever had was simple orange pekoe iced tea sweetened with apple juice instead of sugar. I had to ask the owner of the restaurant what was in it, because it didn’t taste like apple – it was the most amazing, blended flavor. Pear juice is also delicious. Orange juice or lemonade will affect the flavor more than apple, but since iced tea is traditionally served with a wedge of lemon or orange, that’s not a bad thing. Raspberry or pomegranate juice also work well.

Vanilla extract. Put in a few drops, to taste.

Coffee extract. It may sound weird, but a touch of coffee extract – seriously, just a very few drops to a gallon, not enough to overwhelm – can add a bold, roasted quality to the flavor of iced tea.

Butterscotch extract. Mmmm.

Brew with cinnamon sticks. Toss some cinnamon sticks – I’d go with 5-6, but again it’s a matter of taste – into the boiled water at the same time as you put the tea bags in. Remove them when you pour the hot water in with the cold, or leave them if you like a really strong cinnamon flavor.

Mint. Adding mint sprigs is a very traditional way to flavor iced tea. Put them in when you pour the hot concentrated tea in with the cold water (Step 5).

Share your tips and recipes for iced tea in the comments!

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