How To Brew Perfect Iced Tea
You’ve planned the perfect Sunday brunch and invited all your friends. Everything tastes wonderful except the iced tea. It looks pretty in the glass, but for all the flavor it has you could have saved yourself the trouble and served your guests water. The solution? Learn how to brew the perfect pitcher, and start with a high-quality tea.
Forget about those tea bags you buy at the grocery store. Even the most expensive name brands produce little more than colored water. To get any flavor at all you have to over-steep the tea, and then you just end up with bitter-tasting brown or green water.
Your iced tea should be just as memorable as everything else you serve at your luncheon, and you want your guests to remember it because it tastes good. That’s why it’s important to start with a high-quality tea. Consider teas that are specially grown and processed to provide fresh flavor with no bitter after-taste.
Along with using a high-quality tea, the secret to great-tasting iced tea also lies in the preparation. And it’s not just the amount of tea you use – it’s also the amount of time you allow the tea to steep.
Brewing iced tea is a little different than brewing hot tea. Remember, you’ll be pouring your tea over ice. As the ice melts, the water is going to dilute your tea, so you need to start with a stronger brew.
Most people think they just need to steep their tea longer to produce more flavor, but that’s what produces the bitter taste. Instead, you need to increase the amount of tea you use.
The tea experts suggest that you use one teaspoon of loose tea for every eight ounces of water when you’re brewing hot tea, but don’t forget you’ll need to make it stronger for iced tea. Depending on your taste and the type of tea you’re using, you’ll need to use one and one-half to two teaspoons of loose tea per eight ounces of water.
Water temperature also affects the taste of your tea. Never let your water come to a full boil. The boiling point of water is 212 degrees. Most teas taste best when steeped in water that ranges from 175 to 185 degrees, so remove your kettle from the heat just before the water comes to a boil.
Each type of tea requires a different brewing time, but you might be surprised to learn that the average is just two to three minutes. Most people leave those store-bought tea bags in their cup for five minutes or more just to get a little flavor and color. That actually produces a bitter cup of tea. Of course, the alternative is to remove that tea bag after just three minutes, but then you just have a cup of warm, muddy water.
When you use high-quality tea from China Mist Tea wholesale, everything else just falls into place. You don’t have to worry about over- or under-brewing because these superior teas are more flavorful than anything you can buy at the grocery store. And you can also stop worrying about what your guests are going to think, because you’ll be serving them a refreshing glass of delicious iced tea.
Image source:upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Pitcher_and_glass_of_iced_tea_-_Evan_Swigart.jpg/319px-Pitcher_and_glass_of_iced_tea_-_Evan_Swigart.jpg
Similar Posts:
- How to Brew the Perfect Cup of Oolong Tea
- How to Brew the Perfect Cup of Rooibos Tea
- Looking for a Great Fruit Tea?
- How to Brew the Perfect Cup of White Tea
- How to Brew the Perfect Cup of Darjeeling Tea
September 1, 2013
I’ve actually tried making Iced Tea a few times and each time it always tasted far too bitter.
I had no idea each type of tea could have it’s own unique brewing time, or that letting it brew for longer than 5 minutes makes it extra bitter, which I think is where I’ve been going wrong.
Thanks for the great tips!