Summer Recipe: 3 Refreshing Twists on Iced Tea

A friend of mine recently started working at a Tea Bar in where they mix up iced tea blends in a Martini shaker and combine unusual ingredients for refreshingly cold tea-based drinks. Jump below for some inspiration to keep summer cool and delicious.

Of course, my friend couldn’t reveal their exact recipes for making the tea drinks at the bar, so take these as a jumping off point for creating your own concoctions. And keep in mind that an easy way to try something new is to replace your normal tea with something different. The store keeps oolong, green tea, white tea, traditional black tea and fruit infused teas on tap to use as a base for hot or cold drinks. So if you always go the way of black tea, try green tea instead.

Green Tea, Bubbles, Lemon and Mint
Brew your green tea strong (we’ve been making sun tea), pour it over ice, add a splash of bubbly water, a squeeze and a slice of lemon and a sprig of mint. It reminds us of a mojito but without the sugar or the alcohol.

Black Tea with Lavender
Brew your choice of black tea and pour over ice, leaving a little room. For the lavender, you can either use a lavender tea, or you can add some lavender from the garden and allow it to simmer gently on the stove until the water is infused with the flavor. Reduce the amount of liquid by half so that the flavor is more concentrated. Keep this bottled in the fridge for moments like these. Add a splash of the lavender infused water to your black tea. Serve. (We like it without milk or sweetener, but try adding some honey or condensed milk in place of sugar).

White Tea with Condensed Milk and Almond
Starting with white tea, which is mild and not as caffeinated as black tea, add a touch of condensed milk (with has sugar in it) and a scoop of almond powder. If you have a shaker, this is a good one to shake over ice since it helps the almond powder disperse. Pour over ice and serve. It’s sweet, almondy and delicious.

And once the sun starts to set you can experiment with adding alcohol to these to make true tea cocktails.

What are your favorite iced tea concoctions?

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(Image: Laure Joliet)