The Secret to Amazing Iced Tea- Easy as 1,2,3.

1. Your iced tea will be much smoother in taste
2. You can prepare it the day before
3. You won’t need an infuser
4. No preservatives, added flavours or sugars

The process of cold brewing releases the properties and favours of the tea leaf, herbs and dried fruits at a much slower rate, hence why your tea is smoother and brings out the beautiful sweetness and excellent characteristics of the tea.

How to Brew Iced Tea

Cold brewing is as easy as 1,2,3 and let's be honest, you’ll never want to make it any other way. All is you need is 3 things, yep that’s right

• the tea 
• a jug, bowl or anything that you see fit to use and
• cold filtered water

There is still one thing to keep in mind, when using tea leaf- black, green, white or oolong tea I personally still like to give them a time limit of six to eight hours, only because they do contain tea leaf and can even become too strong if left too long. For all herbal and fruit infusions, you can leave them longer- ten to twelve hours.

Here’s how to make 1-litre using TeaEsk’s Huckleberry Blue

Rule of thumb for iced tea, use 2 teaspoons per 250ml of water. The reason for this is that you need it to be strong enough so that when ice is added, it can withstand a little dilution.

• In your jug add 1 litre of cold filtered water
• Add eight good teaspoons of Huckleberry Blue to your water 
• Leave in the fridge to brew overnight or for a good 12 hours

And that's it! So simple, it feels too good to be true.

Here comes the fun part

• When you are ready to use, you will need to strain the infused liquid into another jug or bowl.
• You can add a touch of honey or sweetener of your choice (I find that Huckleberry Blue is sweet enough on its own). If you do choose to add honey, I always boil some water first just add a little to a glass so the honey will melt before adding to your iced tea. 
• Cut some strawberries and either add fresh or frozen blueberries along with sprigs of mint to the strained iced tea, along with a small amount of ice and stir. 

OR

Add fruit, mint and the ice cubes to individual glasses and pour mixture over ice.
Keep the jug of iced tea in the fridge so that it keeps cool and top up glasses as you need.

Feeling in the mood for a cocktail, or having a dinner party?! Add a splash of vodka or gin to spice things up. You can even add tonic water to make a spritz. This will totally impress your guests!

One more thing to mention, I only store my iced tea no longer than two days in something that is airtight. But let’s be honest, iced tea that tastes that good won’t last that long.

I hope you have enjoyed learning the secret to amazing iced tea, I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing it with you all. Best of all and the thing I love most about tea is not to take it too seriously, experiment and enjoy it the way you like.

Cheers to creating extraordinary tea moments together!

Love Mel x