Iced Tea Double Feature

It's been a busy couple of months!  Cups of tea, let alone the time to write about them have been few and far between, but a few weeks ago, the wife and I did make a couple of excellent pitchers of iced white tea.  In each case, we filled a big pot partway with water (~2.5 quarts in a 5 quart pot), approximated the number of tea bags for a good strong brew (about 25, though it depends on the tea), and steeped for about 2 minutes (white tea is fragile and usually doesn't overbrew well, especially bag tea).  We scooped the tea bags out, sweetened lightly, and chilled.


Bentley's Ginger Peach White Tea

As a stand alone cup of hot tea, I don't think I'd have that much to say about this tea.  It's pleasant, but pretty unremarkable.  As a well brewed, slightly sweetened ice tea, however, it really shines.  The touch of sweetener, agave nectar in this case, really brings the peach to the forefront, while the tingle of the ginger and the brightness of the tea balance out the profile.  White tea can be finicky and bitter if brewed too long or too hot, or even if it's just not a high enough quality, but I find Bentley's to be decent quality tea, especially for a bag, and a bit more forgiving than some other brands.


Overall, a great cup of summertime iced tea, and pretty easy to make. B+


Tea Nation Raspberry White Tea

Tea Nation's Raspberry White was the second big batch we tried, and it was a bit more finicky than the Bentley's, but with some creativity, came out great.  After our initial steeping in the big pot, I fished out the 25 or so tea bags, and sweetened with some regular old sugar (couldn't find the agave nectar), and taste tested.  My initial impression was that we'd overdone some aspect, and it had come out a hair bitter.  Not wanting to waste a huge pot of fresh tea, my wife did some quick thinking, and grabbed a bag of frozen raspberries from the freezer (I love raspberries, so we're not often without them in some form) and chucked them in the still warm tea.  We let them sit for a few hours to thaw and let the flavors mingle, then chilled the whole thing.  The result was really excellent...more an ice tea based fruit drink than true iced tea, but semantics aside, it was great!  The tea provided a nice astringent backbone for the huge raspberry flavor, and the raspberries were of course, delicious.

I have to give the tea itself a C, as it was kind of finicky and unexciting, but the end result was far better than that, thanks to the wife's quick thinking.


I started writing this entry over a month ago!  Children certainly are free time vampires...it's good to be writing again, though, even if it's not as often as I'd like.  I hope to be posting a bit more often over the next few months, though I'll just have to take it as it comes.  I have a few good posts hanging out in the back of my mind, as well as another project in the background (running related), but all these things depend on the whims of a colicky infant.  Anyway, hopefully more to come in the near future.