Why homemade iced tea is worth the effort
Bottled iced tea is convenient, but brewing your own lets you decide exactly how strong, how sweet and how fruity each jug is. You also get to choose teas that suit your taste rather than settling for whatever flavour happens to be on special. There is very little technique involved: once you know two methods and a couple of ratios, you can turn almost any tea in your cupboard into a summer jug.
Method one: hot brew and chill
This is the classic approach and it works with nearly any tea. Brew the tea hot, but make it stronger than usual, because ice will later water it down.
- Measure about four heaped teaspoons of loose leaf tea per litre of water, or four to six pyramid bags.
- Brew with water at the temperature the tea normally likes, around boiling for black tea and around 80 degrees for green tea.
- Steep a little longer than you would for a hot cup, roughly five minutes for black and herbal teas, about three for green.
- Strain out the leaf or remove the bags, then let the brew cool to room temperature.
- Pour over a jug full of ice and refrigerate until cold.
Chilling the tea before it meets the ice keeps the flavour from becoming watery, so if you have time, refrigerate the brew for an hour first and go easy on the ice.
Method two: cold brew overnight
Cold brewing could not be simpler. Add three to four teaspoons of tea per litre of cold water to a jug, give it a stir, cover it and leave it in the fridge overnight, about eight to twelve hours. Strain in the morning and the tea is ready. The slow, cold extraction draws out a smooth, gentle flavour with very little bitterness, which makes it especially good for green teas. The finished brew is already chilled, so there is no waiting around, and it keeps happily in the fridge for a couple of days.
Sweetening your iced tea
Sugar is slow to dissolve in cold liquid, so sweeten while the tea is still warm if you are hot brewing: stir in honey or sugar to taste, about one to two tablespoons per litre is a gentle starting point, and dissolve it fully before chilling. For cold brew, make a simple syrup instead by dissolving equal parts sugar and water in a saucepan, then keep the syrup in a jar and sweeten each glass to taste. Many fruit teas need very little, so always taste before you add anything.
Fruit and herb additions
Fresh ingredients turn a plain jug into something worth showing off. Slices of orange, lemon or stone fruit, a handful of berries, bruised mint leaves or a stick of lemongrass all infuse happily in a cold jug. Add them at the same time as the tea, or drop them into the finished jug and let them sit for an hour in the fridge. Frozen berries do double duty as ice cubes, chilling the tea without diluting it.
Which teas suit icing?
Some teas were practically made for the fridge. Fruit and herb blends shine cold: Lemongrass Rosehip, a caffeine free pairing of lemongrass with tart rosehip, makes a bright, citrusy jug, while Pomegranate Green Tea, with its pomegranate flavour and rose petals, is good hot or iced and looks lovely with a slice of lemon. Fruited black teas work beautifully too, and Exotic Peach, a black tea with peach flavour and real pieces of ginger, brews into something like a homemade peach iced tea. For a clean, cooling caffeine free option, Supermint Tea, made from real peppermint and spearmint leaves with marigold petals, ices into a fresh, deeply minty glass.
Whatever the blend, the pattern stays the same: strong brew, gentle chill, plenty of ice. Keep a jug on hand through the warm months and you will find iced tea becomes less of a recipe and more of a habit.