|
Iced Tea
 The discovery of Iced Tea could be considered as more of a plight from losing profit during Americas 1st World Fair. An English Tea plantation owner by the name of Richard Blechynden planned to distribute free samples of his product when a heat wave hit. Naturally, people would be looking for something to refresh themselves and tea was served hot, as far as everybody during that time was concerned but this was not the case down South. Now out of desperation, Richard Blechynden put in a lot of ice and thus the first Iced Tea was born. As far as the people down south were concerned, tea was served cold but not iced, especially during the early centuries when refrigeration technology was merely in its infancy.
The original iced (served cold) tea down south was served with sugar to give it some sweetening. It was cold Sweet Tea and is still an enjoyed beverage even up to this point. The development of Iced Tea in the US has branched out to a variety of styles. Some are artificial mostly sugar and flavoring, while others are the real thing.
The standard tea used for iced tea is black tea. Being a standard made it an overused component. The best thing to do next time is to look for a different kind of tea, one that strays away from the standard. At least that would give the drinker something new. There are many types of teas that can be iced including: herbal, black, oolong, green, and white.
Our Collection
Here we have compiled all of the tea in our collection that are equally great if not better iced. As almost all types of teas and tisanes can be enjoyed hot not all can be enjoyed iced. For instance you wouldn't want to drink an iced chamomile tea. We welcome you to experiment with all our teas. These are just some suggestions to get you started. These flavors are bright and vibrant and are just down right refreshing on a hot summers day.
General Steeping Suggestions for Larger Batches
We recommend starting out with these instructions and adjusting to your particular taste. For every quart you will want to use 2tbs of tea. For every gallon you will need 8tbs of tea. Its easiest to first brew a concentrate. Keep in mind each tea has a different steeping time and temperature so you will want to adhere to those two guidelines for each specific tea. Just make sure the leaves have plenty of room to circulate. Fill your pitcher up with ice and when your concentrated tea is finished steeping add it to the ice. Then simply fill with water to the top. It's that simple. A quick tip for adding real sugar to sweeten it is to add it to the tea while it is being steeped. Sugar has a hard time dissolving in cold water. You want the sugar to distribute evenly and work in harmony with the flavors. Also preparing a simple syrup ahead of time can be very convenient.
|
