While half of the world is eagerly awaiting any sign of snow while they sit by their fires and sip on delicious hot chocolate, us New Zealanders, (along with most others living in the Southern Hemisphere) are sitting in our homes in singlets, in the middle of a hot and humid summer, dreaming of all manner of cold drink concoctions and silently laughing at the snowmen ornaments hanging on our Christmas trees - because we all know that we will never ever have a Christmas here in our land with snowmen and other winter-like things, yet we still hang up these Wintertime ornaments for Christmas, year after year.
Anyway, while dreaming of cold drinks and deciding that I must make up another batch of Iced Coffee, I had the genius idea to make my own Iced Tea. Iced Tea isn't really a common drink here in New Zealand - but while on our trip to Israel a couple of years ago we discovered it (mainly because we were desperate to get our hands on anything remotely cold and liquid-like, while stumbling through the 40 degree plus desert). I quickly acquired a love for it, and have since bought the occasional bottle of it, but never attempted to make it myself... until now.
The recipe is simple and quick to make, and you can add your own flavours like lemon or peach to zhuzh up your drink.
I initially tried it out using normal teabags, but then tried using my organic green loose leaf tea, which was delicious and gave a much lighter taste.
Plain Iced Tea
- Make a brew of tea using 4 teabags (or 4 teaspoons of loose leaf tea) and 4 cups of water (filtered water will give a far better taste). Allow the tea to steep for no more than 5 minutes, otherwise it may become bitter. You can use either traditional black tea or lighter-tasting green tea.
- In a large jug place 1 cup of sugar (I don't have sugar in my tea normally, so half a cup or either a quarter suits me better) and 4 cups of cold (filtered) water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.
- Pour your brewed tea into the sugar/water mixture and stir. Adding the hot tea to the cold water helps prevent the finished drink from becoming cloudy.
- Allow to cool further then serve in glasses over ice. Sprigs of mint or thin slithers of lemon make an attractive garnish.
Yes, us hot and bothered Kiwi's are very happy now...
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Iced Tea recipe source (and more flavour ideas) here.
5 comments
Oh my I saw some of Symons flesh.... must make ice tea some time.
ReplyDeleteI've attempted to make it myself a few times. However, I found that the tea I used was give a light bitter taste. The almighty internet told me to fix this by sprinkling in some baking soda! Might help someday when you're using another brand of tea.
ReplyDeleteYummo! I might try that. Is Symon drinking naked? ;)
ReplyDeleteHaha - only shirtless
DeleteI'm trying this right now with green tea with mandarin and limeflowers, hopefully it'll be yummy!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments... I love hearing from you!!!