I love fruity, flavored iced tea, but I don’t like how much work it takes to create it. I used to have a lengthy procedure that included cooking fruit with sugar and water, making tea, combining the two, and waiting until everything cooled down to prevent the ice from diluting the flavor I had worked so hard to get. It was worth it, yet I would be lying if I claimed I made it frequently. That is, until I started having a cold tea out of premium Darjeeling green tea with Mango chunks. Yes, a Mango Iced Tea.
The best summertime libation, especially for someone like me who doesn’t use alcohol, is floral iced tea. It is chilly, energizing, and earthy without being excessively sweet or monotonous. I couldn’t bear the notion of turning on my gas burner to prepare flavored syrup for iced tea on one particularly hot day last summer. The only item in the fridge when I opened it to look for a cold beverage was a jar of raspberry preserves. It hit me: How does the chilled tea directly in that fruity syrup taste like?
The extra-sweet bottled varieties have their place, and there is no right or wrong method to brew iced tea. But a quality cold-brew tea can also blow your mind with brilliant marine and fruit flavors and sweet floral aromas. An intense, full-bodied finish that lingers on the tongue for a long time. An iced coffee may give you a bigger jolt of caffeine to get you through the afternoon, but a well-flavored ice tea fortifies my spirit, leaving me convinced I could arm wrestle a grizzly bear.
It's simple to obtain a pristine glass of lemon iced tea. A few minor tweaks may transform your homemade brew from chilly and practical to truly amazing if you've never had ice tea that made your mouth water with awe.
What’s the best Floral iced tea?
The heavily chopped ice tea powder used in most teabags infuse quickly to make a strong pitcher of chilled tea, though not necessarily an interesting one. Select loose leaf specialty tea for a more sophisticated iced tea. You can also select from our virtual tea store and see where your option turns on to. The amount of flavor and complexity found in an iced tea brewed with loose leaf tea is astounding. Whole leaf teas tend to brew less bitterly and astringently in the cup and have a natural sweetness all their own. You can, in my opinion, drink them with little to no sugar. Additionally, they endure a lot longer. You can steep the same leaves several times before becoming weak.
My Floral Iced Tea
Any tea could satiate a tea fan, but certain styles take better to the treatment than others. Well oxidized Black teas develop brisk, malty flavors and make a great full-bodied cup. White and peach iced teas have very bright and delicate flavors. Additionally, roasted teas like Hojicha and grain teas like buckwheat and barley get crisper and more refreshing when served over ice.
I’m more inclined to use a herbal tea infused with fruit or flowers, like chrysanthemum, if I’m brewing a nice floral iced tea. In my experience, sugar tends to flatten the kaleidoscopic character of quality tea. Herbal teas, however, have a more clear flavor profile, allowing sugar to serve as a flavor enhancer, much like adding salt to food. The secret is to use a simple syrup to sweeten it rather than putting sugar into floral chilled tea.