Christopher Allan Webber

Iced tea and related cold beverages, at home and cheap

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also on my blog

In spring through fall, we always have a couple of pitchers (one decaf and one caffeinated) of "iced tea" in the fridge (though it's not necessarily the tea plant, if you care about that term... personally I think people are a bit snobby about having only one plant be The Acceptable Drink Herb). It's easy enough... just get a pitcher, add some tea bags to it (or loose tea in some sort of reusable loose-tea-holder or something, but honestly I'm too lazy for that) and some sweetener if that's your bag (we've been using stevia + erythritol sweetener stuff, sold as Truvia or whatever) and fill it with water, stirring once.

Now put it in the fridge.

You're done! You now have a delicious cold beverage that you can drink whenever and which costs about as little as a flavored beverage can.

Tea I like to drink:

  • Celestial Seasonings makes a lot of "fruity" herbal tea things that are pretty good in combination with black tea. I put in half black tea bags and half peach/raspberry/mint/whatever.
  • Chai, caffeinated or decaf. If you make this with Stevia or whatever, then pour it into a glass with a tablespoon of creamer, that's 1/5 or less the calories of the "iced chai" sold at a common coffee shop.
  • Some combination of: cucumber slices, lime wedges, lemon wedges, mint leaves.

Takes up some space in the fridge, but IMO it's worth it. And hey, better than filling it up with soda probably...

Nathan Willis, der.hans likes this.

clacke@libranet.de ❌, clacke@libranet.de ❌ shared this.

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Few have! Sadly I don't have good pointers for where to find it; my guess would be farmer's-market style places, or homebrewers. But those are speculative. It might be a quest....

Nathan Willis at 2017-05-02T21:14:44Z

It is; depending on the variant I suppose. I've made it -- the hardest part is convincing other people to try it if they know it contains vinegar.

If you're game for the challenge, I'd say go for it; however, given the std recipe size it could be a large volume to deal with if it turns out it's not your cup of ... well, you know.

Nathan Willis at 2017-05-02T21:20:39Z

Christopher Allan Webber likes this.

@valhalla I printed out that Girl Genius "Tea" poster and put up in the break corner of my until-recently office. It's glorious.

clacke@libranet.de ❌ at 2017-05-03T04:47:35Z

Elena ``of Valhalla'' likes this.