You can’t search for “tea”, so if you happen to remember old threads about the subject I’d appreciate them.
I’ve been hooked on Arizona Iced Teas for a few months now. I know those are probably considered vile among tea snobs (everything popular is bad!), but I’m hooked. But I’m willing to expand my horizons and try more types of hot and cold teas.
I’d like to start making my own iced tea - both to reduce the sugar content and to make more of it cheaply. Can you artificially sweeten iced tea and make it taste good? As far as I know, the process of making iced tea is simply making hot tea and then cooling it, right? Or are there special magical iced tea trees in Sri Lanka? What variety of tea do you use to make iced tea, or can you do it with any sort?
I’m not a coffee fan and not typically a fan of hot drinks, but I could imagine liking hot tea from time to time. How should I start? Can you buy high quality tea at grocery stores? What brands? What type? Are there any tricks to preparing it, or is it just a matter of pouring boiling water over a tea bag?
Tell me whatever you think I need to know on my way to becoming a tea drinker.
I like unsweetened teas, but generally I like it to be somewhat sweet. Not necesarily extremely sugared up like iced tea commonly is.
I was thinking of adding some sweetness naturally by mixing in some fruit juices. Some of the Arizona mixed tea/juice combos are excellent (mango, pomegranite, blueberry, asian plum, mandarin orange - all good).
Arizona has a peach instant tea in a canister with small containers for 2 quarts each.
It is made with Splenda, and it is DIVINE.
I love all sorts of tea, but when I want iced tea this is what I crave. It’s refreshing, not too sweet or chemical-ish. Has a good real peach flavor, not the peach candy taste.
I know this doesn’t exactly broaden your horizons, but if you want artificially flavored tea this stuff rocks. I’ve noticed it’s placed with the kool-aid type packets instead of by the teas if you were to look for it.
Yikes! According to the interwebz, Arizona Iced Tea has about 100 calories per 8 ounces. That’s as much as soda. How the hell does that happen?
Anyway, I’m no expert on tea but my favorite brand is Choice Organic Teas and my fave type is the Celtic Breakfast Tea. It’s described as “A malty tea of strength.” I like that. It has a nice flavor. The English Breakfast Tea is also good. I usually drink them hot with a little raw sugar. Lots of people put milk or lemon in their tea but I don’t like that.
You can make good iced tea with these flavors. Put 4-6 tea bags in a pitcher (I like glass pitchers) and add a kettle of boiling water. I use distilled water to make both tea and coffee because I think my tap water tastes like crap. Leave the tea bags in for a few minutes (if you leave them in too long, it gets bitter). After you remove the tea bags, fill the pitcher up with cold water and stir. I sweeten each glass of tea individually but I imagine it would be easier to dissolve the sugar if you put some in before you add the cold water.
Little secret - these teas are relatively expensive. I save the used tea bags in the fridge and when I have two, I put both in a cup and make one more cup of tea with them before I throw them away.
And do it quickly, let Qadgop have to repeat himself yet again!
(I confess, I like very strong tea with just a bit of sugar in it - I want both the bitter and the sweet notes in there. But that’s me. And the higher quality the tea the less sugar I need. And I use real sugar which I add myself, so I can control the quantity - teas like Arizona have so many calories because they add HFCS until it appeals to the cola-drinking crowd. But to each their own.)
I use the Luziannetea bags for iced tea. Supposedly the tea is blended to be better for iced tea, but I dunno. The big ol’ bags are nice for a big pitcher - I use two bags for a two-quart pitcher, which comes out quite strong, and add more ice/water to the glass as I drink.
If I think of it while it’s still hot I add a few spoonfuls of sugar to the whole pitcher (dissolves more easily) but I often forget and have to sweeten the glass individually as I drink it, which is a bit of a pain since it doesn’t dissolve so well once it’s cold.
Try agave nectar - it dissolves better than honey or sugar in cold water, and the light (as opposed to amber) varieties have a nice, neutral flavor (or lack thereof). It’s at Whole Foods and Central Market now but is picking up popularity. Also, make a margarita with it once you get some. Trust me.
For hot tea, I usually use bags of Bigelow. I like their Earl Grey (black) and Jasmine (green) teas. I could be a tea snob, I suppose, but I’ve drank that Bigelow for most of my life, and now any other tea just tastes “wrong.” If I don’t feel like a flavored tea I stick to Lipton, but I’m old-school like that.
Also, sometimes I throw a couple of bags of Earl Grey or Jasmine into with the regular black Luzianne tea for the iced tea pitcher. Adds a little extra flavor without getting overwhelming.
Tea is high in antioxidants so it’s good for you! Drink up! I absolutely love a hot cup of black tea after a heavy meal - it seems to make digestion easier. Somehow.
I use Celestial Seasonings for iced tea. I make it in a 6-quart pot and use 20-24 bags for each pot (depending on the flavor . . . some need more or less). I sweeten with a little Splenda, let it cool, then refrigerate.
Take a gallon of filtered or good quality water and pour two quarts into a pot or kettle to boil. Do not put the tea bags into the water yet. I use Luzianne family sized tea bags and for a gallon I use 4 of them. Once the water is boiling put in the tea bags and take the pot or kettle off the heat. Do not stew the tea in water still on the heat, let it steep in water than has just fallen right under boiling temperature. While the tea is steeping pour 1 to 1 1/4 cups of sugar into a pitcher. 1 cup of sugar contains 774 calories, there are 128 fluid ounces in a gallon giving you 16 8 ounce servings at about 48 calories each. Not bad, certainly better than cola. Once the tea has steeped (about 7-10 minutes) pour the hot tea over the sugar in the pitcher and stir to dissolve all of the sugar. Once the sugar is dissolved pour the remaining 2 quarts of water into the sweetened tea to make 1 gallon.
Sometimes I’ll use that other 2 quarts of water to make lemonade and mix the hot tea into the lemonade to make a pitcher of Arnold Palmer.
I make it two quarts at a time, two Luzianne family sized bags and one Celestial peppermint bag, enough boiling water to cover and then steep. After about half an hour, I remove the tea bags and fill the pitcher up with water. If you like it sweetened, stir the sugar in while it is still warm enough to dissolve it. Pretty easy.
If you like flavored iced tea with a bit of alcoholic kick, a shot of any kind of schnapps or amaretto in a glass of unsweetened iced tea is refreshing without being cloyingly sweet.
For hot tea, my personal preference is Twining’s Earl Grey, loose in the pot. If all I’m drinking is a cup, a bag of Twining’s Irish Breakfast or Lady Grey. Around the holidays, Celestial makes a couple of herbal teas that I like: Gingerbread Man and Holiday Spice. Unlike most herbal teas, they are strong enough for a black tea drinker.
Thread about tea from just last month (for the record, I found it by Googling site:straightdope.com Chronos tea). That was mostly about hot tea, but I imagine it’d be much the same for iced.
And with the amount of sugar they have, Arizona iced teas should really be considered a type of pop, not of tea. But then, I drink pop, too, so I can’t exactly be snobbish about it.
You can also buy big jars of powdered tea, sweetened or unsweetened. The advantages are it’s cheaper per ounce and you can make as much or as little as you want, and it’s ready when you want it. (Yeah, it’s not exactly like tea you brew yourself, but neither is the stuff you buy in bottles.)
And for those wondering what’s in unsweetened powdered tea mix: 100% tea.
Yeah, I use Luzianne or Lipton teabags most of the time, sometimes I’ll use some Earl Grey or English Breakfast Tea instead.
I have a tea-brewing machine. All I do is fill it with water, but teabags in the holder/strainer thing, turn it on, and let the magic happen. Of course, I like strong tea, so instead of diluting the product with water to fill the pitcher, I run more water through the brewing process, then add sugar to that result. I use about 3/4 cup of sugar for a half gallon of tea.
As for different kinds of tea…I dunno much, but I think the boxes of teabags usually say it’s a mixture of Orange Pecoe and Black teas…whatever that means.
I have an iced tea maker, which uses leaves. You put the leaves and whatever sugar you want, if any, in a standard coffee filter, pour half the water you need into the maker, and put the other half in the container. Turn it on, and your tea is made. After it cools a bit I squeeze a lemon from my lemon tree into it and out it in the fridge. I use Lipton leaves, but that is getting hard to get, so I’m about to start on an English brand I got from a local Afghan grocery.
Before we had the tea maker we boiled a big pot of water than then put in a few tea bags, then added sugar and lemon after we poured it into a container. The tea maker is easier, since you don’t have to watch the stove.
Powdered iced tea is an anathema. When out, we ask if the tea is powdered - if it is, we drink water.
English Breakfast (or Irish Breakfast) pretty much is “just tea”, or perhaps a bit stronger than normal, but it doesn’t have any extra flavorings added like Earl Gray or Orange Pekoe.
I absolutely love a hot cup of black tea after a heavy meal - it seems to make digestion easier. Somehow.