Recipe: Iced Tea

Iced tea is the perfect summer drink (besides lemonade of course) - so why not make it yourself? There are so many different kinds of teas available, including variety packs of flavours, you'll be sure to find the perfect blend for your taste. Personally, I love fruity teas iced (but not so much hot).

Iced Tea

Ingredients:

2-4 tea bags, depending on the size of your pitcher

1 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

water, boiling & cold

Methods:

1. Choose the tea you want to brew. I went with the teaman's mandarin mango herbal blend.

Since these tea bags came in a sampler pack, I only had 2 & wound up with about 1/2 a pitcher of iced tea.

2. Boil as much water as your kettle will hold & steep the tea bags in the pitcher.

3. Meanwhile, make a simple syrup by mixing 1 cup of water & 3/4 cup of sugar in a small saucepan.

Heat it over medium heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat & allow to cool.

4. Once the tea has cooled, it's time to figure out how sweet you want it. This is a bit of trial & error, so go slowly. Add a small amount of syrup & cold water, taste, then add more. Repeat until you're happy with the flavour. I needed about 1/2 cup of syrup & 2 cups of water - but this will completely depend on the strength of your tea & size of your pitcher.

Enjoy!

Variations:

• You could add in some lemon juice (freshly squeezed or not) if you like your tea with a citrus twist.
• If you prefer your tea with milk, try adding it into your iced tea (for an iced chai latte, add milk so that you have equal parts milk & tea - in other words, brew the bags in 4 cups of water & add 4 cups of milk).
• For a mint twist, use fresh mint leaves. Mash them a little with a mortar & pestle (or the back of a spoon) & throw them into the brewing tea (or the simple syrup - you could then use the leftovers to infuse mint into some fresh-squeezed lemonade).