The Tea Detective
Uncovering and Exploring the Facts About Tea
Uncovering and Exploring the Facts About Tea
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| How to Make Iced Tea Summer's Favorite Beverage |
| Summer just wouldn't be summer without a tall, thirst quenching glass of iced tea. Here are quick and easy instructions for brewing up a perfect gallon of summertime's favorite beverage, plus tips and ideas for adding sweeteners and your favorite flavors, for an even tastier brew. |
| Iced Tea (makes 1 gallon) (16-8 oz. glasses) What you need Fresh, good tasting cold water (16-8 oz cups) 6 tablespoons loose tea Or - 18 tea bags Instructions Heat 8 cups (64 oz) cold water to boiling: Green tea - 170-180F (77-82C) Black tea - (190-200F (88-93C) Oolong tea - 180-200F (82-93C) (Visit our Secrets of Brewing and How to Brew page for more helpful info on brewing and steeping) |
| Add loose tea or tea bags to hot water and steep: Green tea - 3 minutes Black tea - 5 minutes Oolong tea - 3-4 minutes Remove loose tea leaves or tea bags from water and let hot brewed tea cool down a bit before adding to 8 cups cold water in a 1 gallon jar or pitcher. Stir brewed tea and water in pitcher to mix, and refrigerate. Add sweeteners, garnishments, or flavor additions or just leave plain. Visit our Measure and Yield page for more on measuring different types and styles of tea, and our Herbal Teas page for measuring equivalents for fresh, powdered, and dried herbs and spices. Also see our Measuring Loose Leaf Tea page for info on how to weigh the correct amount of tea for different sized cups, mugs, teapots and travel mugs. Adding Flavorings Some like their tea straight up, no sweeteners, no lemon, or garnishments of any kind. But many people (myself included) love to experiment with different flavors and combinations. Iced tea goes together well with many different flavors, from fresh mint, to lemon, lime, orange, raspberry, strawberry, peach, blueberry...well, you get the picture. It's only really limited by your imagination. Use a flavored tea as a base, and add from there. Either fresh or frozen fruit makes a great flavoring. Either cut fresh fruit up into small pieces or freeze fruit juice in ice cube trays and add for a nice flavor boost. Herbs and spices also add a nice kick of flavor. Start with a mint gunpowder tea as a base and add fresh chopped or whole mint leaves (maybe from your own herb gar- den?), for a fresh, invigorating taste. Or if you like it spicy you can add a teaspoon of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, or whole star anise to the hot tea while it's steeping, so the spices can infuse with the tea. Rather than sweetening iced tea with sugar or honey, add half a cup of fruit juice to sweeten, giving it a fresh, sweet flavor, and so healthy, too. You can use any kind of fruit juice you enjoy, be it apple, cranberry, raspberry, orange, even pomegranite makes a great flavor addition. Try using flavored tea as a base, (Silver Leaf Tea's Blueberry and Strawberry Teas are perfect) and just add from there. Have fun creating tasty, complex flavor combina- tions for your iced tea, and sit back, relax, and as always, Enjoy! |
| For more information or to learn more about tea, visit our other pages: The history behind iced tea and recipe for sun tea-a summertime classic. Learn the history behind iced tea and how a spur of the moment decision led to its creation, and the recipe for brewing up a glass or pot of sun tea, a summertime classic. No time to brew? Grab a glass of instant or bottle of ready to drink (rtd) tea. Following the creation of iced tea, it took nearly half a century for instant tea mix and bottled and canned ready to drink teas to make their debut. Learn about their creation and what it has led to today. Can tea be used in cooking? The versatile tea leaf not only makes a great beverage, but it's a wonderful addition when cooking. Get tips and ideas for cooking with tea along with a great recipe for Spanish rice with crab or shrimp. Are you always on the go? Take your tea with you. Tea tools, like travel, electric, and insulated mugs keep your tea hot while on the go. Learn about other convenient tools and accessories that will help you take your tea on the go and enjoy it anywhere. How do I calculate how much loose tea to use for brewing either a cup or pot of tea? Learn how to measure the proper amount of tea to perfectly brew either a single cup or entire pot of tea. Also learn how to calculate the number of cups and cost per pound of loose tea. Which tea is used in Japan's traditional tea ceremony? Learn about Japan's oldest and most expensive tea, used in the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. Also learn about two lower grades and what you can expect to pay for each. (Visit Silver Leaf Tea Co. for quality Japanese teas at reasonable prices and with a 100% satisfaction guarantee). Genmaicha-from poor people's tea to pour me another cup, please. Genmaicha was originally a peasant's tea, but not any more. Learn why this healthy tea is in demand in the West by health conscious Americans, and by the elite Japanese as well. (Try Kukicha tea from Silver Leaf Tea Co., a savory yet mellow Japanese twig tea, a healthy green tea that's naturally low in caffeine). Which of Japan's teas is prized by connoisseurs? Find out which tea is Japan's most treasured, and why it is so prized by connoisseurs that there are yearly competitions, crowning the best producer of this special tea. |
| Copyright 2011 www.theteadetective.com All rights reserved. No reproductions of any kind allowed without permission. |
| For a great selection of quality teas, gifts, and accessories, visit: The Tea Detective's Gift of Tea Store |
Receive A Guide To Tea, an 88-page book on the history and enjoyment of tea free with your first Adagio Teas order of $19 or more.
An easy-to-use ingenuiTEA teapot, whose ingenious design has been featured in The New York Times, Time Magazine and HGTV.
Gifts for lovers of tea with free wrapping of all items.