Getting Back Into Iced Tea

Back when I lived in the American South, you literally couldn't move for iced tea. Mostly sweet tea, I mean real real sweet. I hated it. It didn't taste like tea, it was so overpowered by the sugar that it was like drinking thin syrup. When I worked at Outback Steakhouse, staff were allowed to occasionally drink fizzy pop from the dispenser in a disposable paper cone. Then I went to work at Cracker Barrel and staff could only drink water, iced tea and coffee for free, and fizzy drinks had to be paid for. Working in such a hot and fast-paced environment in Georgia can make you very thirsty, and you don't always want hot coffee because (a) it's hard to drink it fast, and (b) as much as it can give you an energy boost, it doesn't always quench one's thirst. So that's when I learned to like unsweetened iced tea, because it was thirst-quenching and you could down it pretty quickly.

Cut to April 2020 and it's been hot these last few days. I had some of those Twinings Cold In'fuse iced tea bags which are great, and I've had a few recently, but then I got to thinking about all the random herbal teabags that I've had sitting around for ages, and wondering how good the iced tea would be using them.

I can testify that so far, they've been good. The one above is made using Waitrose Marquess Grey tea bags, which have a lovely lemongrass flavour. (Yes, I know it looks like a urine sample, but hey, it could just as easily be still cider, you don't know).  I've also used Whittard's Mango and Bergamot, and today sitting in the fridge is a rooibos and chamomile - I'll let you know how that goes.

All I do is fill the lovely drinks bottle above with cold water - it's about a pint - pop in a tea bag of my choice and after sealing, turn the bottle a few times to ensure the bag is thoroughly immersed, then leave it in the fridge overnight. Give it a shot, you might just enjoy it. If nothing else it'll give you something to do with all those single-sachet teabags you've had sitting around for a while. Trust me, everyone has some in the back of the cupboard.

So even though the Twinings Cold In'fuse bags are good, you can use pretty much any teabag, and since we can only go to the shops very infrequently these days, this might be a good spend of your time. You can always blend the results with fruit juices (and/or alcohol) to come up with your own iced tea cocktails. Experiment and play around. Have fun!

 Kooshti Sante!