The Tea FAQ

Cold Brewed Iced Tea

While iced tea can easily be made by making tea with boiling water, it can also be easily made without it. This is pretty much a fire and forget way of making iced tea, as you will not have to monitor a hot pot of tea and hope for the perfect timing. Our Cold Iced Tea recipe:

You will need:

1 Large pitcher (with lid)
Good quality loose-leaf tea
Water
A tea strainer

Methodology:

Fill the pitcher with water, adding tea leaves according to your preference (it may require more tea leaves than you think as cold water does not extract quite as much flavor as hot water), but a good general rule is one tablespoon per pint of water. Use a good quality and strong tea such as assam for a robust flavor as more subtle types of tea will produce a weaker iced tea.

Place the pitcher in the refrigerator and allow to steep overnight. The benefit of steeping in cold water is that much of the astringency of the tea leaves will not be released into the water creating an infusion that may not be quite as richly flavored as a hot water brewed tea, but a much less bitter brew. You will still achieve an excellent beverage, however.

The next morning, strain out the tea leaves and you have made iced tea. Serve with a sprig of mint and lemon for a refreshing treat. As an added benefit, cold brewed iced tea does not get cloudy the way warm brewed iced tea does over time.

Sweetening your iced tea (southern sweet tea):
Some people prefer their iced tea sweet, and while sugar does not dissolve well into a cold beverage, there are a few other solutions (pun intended). Simple syrup is a saturated solution of sugar and water that dissolves perfectly in iced tea, and is quite easy to make. We include a simple syrup recipe for it in our recipe section. Agave nectar is another sweetener that dissolves well in iced tea and adds a nice subtle flavor to your tea. Agave nectar is a honey-like syrup derived from the Agave plant (and used in the manufacture of Tequila) and unlike sugar and honey, dissolves completely in cold liquids. 

N.B. One way to keep your iced tea chilled on a hot summer day without diluting it is to make ice cubes out of your already prepared tea. This way you will always have a perfect glass of iced tea without worrying about a watered down experience.