Chilled Teas - When it’s Hot, Serve it Cold

Published by SamovarLife on June 25, 2009 under Tea Blog, The Culture of Tea, The Tao of Samovar, What's New

In San Francisco, the weather rarely gets hot enough to necessitate ice-cold tea. However, in areas with less-than-absurdly-moderate-climates (such as… most of the United States), there are more opportunities to cool down with tea.

Hot weather doesn’t mean you need to switch from your cool-weather favorites to sub-par bottled teas – plenty of teas translate beautifully from hot to chilled. You just have to know which teas to chill and how to chill them.

Typically, when you chill something, the sweetness drops out a bit. (Think of homemade popsicles – they always taste less sweet than the juice you used to make them.)

In the South, people tend to overcompensate for the loss of sweetness by adding copious amount of sugar to their iced tea. However, you can make delicious chilled tea without any sweeteners.Just select a tea with a naturally sweet flavor profile, like Jasmine Pearl Green Tea, Osmanthus Silver Needle White Tea, Lychee Black Tea, Yunnan Golden Bud Black Tea, Monkey Picked Iron Goddess of Mercy Oolong Tea, Blood Orange Pu-erh Tea or sweet herbal infusions like Moorish Mint and Orange Ginger.

If you prefer your tea with a little honey, raw cane sugar or another sweetener, you can select a tea with a naturally sweet flavor profile, or choose a fuller-bodied or more astringent black tea, like they do in the South.

Once you’ve selected your tea, it’s time to chill. There are two main ways to chill tea. I call them “the slow way” and “the quick way.”

“The slow way” is the simplest way. Simply brew your tea as you normally would, add sweetener if desired and then chill it until it’s cold. Add ice if desired and serve.

“The quick way” is only slightly more complicated than the slow way. Brew the tea as you normally would, but make it twice as strong by either, a) halving the amount of water you use, or b) doubling the amount of tealeaves you use. Sweeten it if you’d like, then pour it over a cup/pitcher full of ice and serve cold. These are the most basic forms of chilled tea, but there are plenty of ways to mix it up.

In upcoming posts, I’ll talk about tea punches, cold-brewed tea, tea lattes, and frozen tea treats, like popsicles and granitas. In the meantime, chill out and drink up!

And to celebrate cooling down in hot weather, all the teas and herbal mentioned in this post will be offered at 20%  off through the 4th of July Weekend with the coupon code: CHILLTEA20

~Lindsey for Samovarlife ~ Lindsey “Vee” Goodwin is a professional tea writer and consultant. She founded Vee Tea, is a contributing editor to World Tea News, writes for non-industry publications about tea and writes web copy/press releases for tea companies. She is also a consultant to several tea companies and teaches about tea through staff training and individual/small group classes and tastings.

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• Michael Pieracci on June 22nd, 2009
  

  Hi Lindsey. It’s nice reading such a thorough article on iced tea and I’m excited to see your future posts on the subject. I once wrote about my own discovery of brewing and storing batches of iced tea for my consumption, for sharing with friends and entertaining. Iced tea is such a perfect compliment to summer (or anytime, really).

• Lindsey on July 2nd, 2009
  

  Hey Michael. Thanks for your comment! I enjoyed your post on iced tea. (Love Voss, BTW.) The next post in this series should be up very soon.

• Glasses on July 14th, 2009
  

  I’ve heard a lot of different brewing instructions for iced tea, some people say the herbal infusions should be set out in the sun to steep, I must admit as much as I’m into hot tea I’m a sucker for the cheap store bought stuff when it comes to iced tea likely because I’ve had some pretty awful home brewed stuff, I’m kind of intimidated making it on my own for fear it will be bad, no one likes to waste good tea.

• Lindsey on July 20th, 2009
  

  Good point, Glasses. If you’re still concerned about spoiling great tea, select a tea with an appropriate flavor profile and make it “the slow way.”

• How Make Cold-Brewed Teas | Tea Blog | Samovar Tea Lounge | Samovarlife on September 1st, 2009
  

  [...] we’ve talked about chilled teas, tea punches, iced tea lattes, and frozen tea treats. Now it’s time to talk about cold-brewed [...]

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