Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Citrus Iced Tea

This turned out just awesome.  I highly recommend it.  It's perfect on a hot summer day.



What you need:

2 Clementine Tangerines (or a medium orange)
1 Lime
microplaner for zesting
Loose tea for making iced tea
teaball
water
strainer

Boil about 1/2 gallon of water.  Here's a tip/trick:  Using filtered or bottled water for the brewing portion will yield much clearer tea.  You tend to get cloudier tea if you use high mineral content tap water.

While the water is coming to a boil, fill the tea ball with your loose leaf tea.  While you CAN use tea in bags, you will taste the paper and the tea loses flavor sitting in packages for months.

Zest the mandarins and the lime completely and put the zest in the bottom of a heat-safe bowl.

Pour boiling water into bowl and put teaball with tea into water.

Let the tea steep for at least 5 minutes (or per directions on tea).

Strain tea and chill.  Serve over ice.

For a little fun, peel the tangerines and lime and freeze them solid, then cut them into wedges and serve them as ice cubes in the tea.

This turned out so well, I had to make another pitcher the same day.

6 comments:

  1. Yumm!!! I am a mint iced tea girl. I have passed the addiction to my family. It is pretty cute, lol.

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  2. Hmmm, Lila, I'll have to do a little of the mint tea.

    NFO - It is. I'm a heretic for not drinking sweet tea and living in the south. Of course, if you want it sweet you'll add the sugar while the tea is still hot so it will dissolve well.

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  3. Try adding bitters to the mix! You'll be amazed!

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  4. I think I could do this with the sun tea that's brewing on the porch. Yummmm!

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  5. Oh my gosh. I haven't had sun tea since I was a kid. My mom and grandmother used to make it all the time. Texas has a short sun tea brewing time. Why do we let things like that fall to the wayside?

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