Posted by Regena Rafelson
Thursday June 19, 2008 | 14 comments
Thursday June 19, 2008 | 14 comments
June is National Iced Tea Month. According to the tale, a vendor at a blistering hot World’s Fair early in the last century could not even give away hot tea. Out of desperation, he jammed some ice in a cup, poured hot tea over it, and . . . an instant sensation was born!
85% of the tea consumed in the Land of the Free is iced, although most of it is hardly recognizable as tea due to flavorings and sugar. If you want the real thing – freshly brewed and still retaining its healthful properties – do as the original purveyor did: brew a cup of strong tea and pour it immediately over ice cubes. Add lemon wedges or fresh mint as you wish.
Enjoy!
I like cold brewing loose leaves in the fridge for a night or two. Very simple and tasty. No ice needed when served, so it’s cold but won’t get diluted.
Details please, Mr. Sheng.
Brewed fresh by the cup, hot over ice…the only way we serve it. Now we do add flavorings to some, I admit.
Oh, there is nothing to it, really. Very simple, as I said. I got the idea from somebody else (can’t remember who or where).
Use aromatic tea leaves (Darjeeling, Oolong, whatever your preference is), I pre-rinse the leaves with hot water, drain, let it cool down a bit, place the leaves in a container (glass milk bottle or plastic beverage container work well), fill the container with drinking water at room temp, chuck the container in the fridge for a night (or more). Voila. Play around with the amount of leaves, though, to get the taste and strength that you like. If the resulting cold brew is too strong for you, then add ice or cold water to dilute.
OK guys, I usually unfortunately if I get busy allow my HOT tea to become tepid and I AVOID using the microwave or reheating these beautiful beverages so my solution year round it to consume the tea (that same day of course) that I’ve brewed earlier as poured over ice. It even works well with the subtle brews, such as TChing’s Bird’s Tongue. Don’t be afraid to try consuming your whites and greens that have become too cool to drink hot (well whites aren’t exactly served really hot in the first place) to take that tepid room temperature TASTY brew and ice it! You still get all the benefits from the brew although I’m sure those with a more scientific bent than myself (and the funding and equipment) may find that the older the brew gets, the less the phenols, antioxidants etc. PEACE and wish me luck in my move. As I emailed Regena, THE THE ITEMS GET PACKED LAST!!! I still need my daily respite.
Keep drinking the good stuff,
PEACE and blessings
Fr. Patrick
Soon to be closer to a large city!
Fr. Patrick, I’ve done the same thing. A full strength tepid works over ice, but obviously not in nearly the same proportions as just brewed over ice, and it always tastes so, so, so much better just fresh brewed, plus it’s fun to watch it melting that ice and a good shake makes it come alive.
(Just my opinion). And yes, I have read that, after one hour after brewing, the ‘good stuff’ in tea begins to degrade.
Actually Team, I think the polyphenols start degrading long before an hour.
Sorry, one small correction to my posting above. The item should have read about my move that the TEA items will be packed last, not the THE items, typo. Mea culpa. Sandy, yep I believe you but I’ll leave the science to those with the education and equipment, I just know that even if there weren’t any benefits from drinking tea that it still tastes great!
Patrick, good luck with the move. I hope your new situation brings you great joy and fulfillment and lots and lots of good tea.
Reply,
Thanks Sandy and there will be LOTS of good tea at the start of the move and the end becuase just like Arthur Dent, (apologies to the author, Douglas Adams) who needed to know where his towel was, I really need to know where my tea and brewing equipment is! :) PEACE
Fr. Patrick
Sandy, could you please post any information you have regarding the time it takes for polyphenols to degrade? This would be extremely helpful.
Also, that being the case, it seems to indicate that bottled teas, however unsweetened and wet they may be…have no other value than just that, wet and unsweetened, wouldn’t it?
I’ll have to look for it Team, but I’m pretty sure that the data indicates that the polyphenols begin to degrade with hot tea after about 5 minutes. I would say that your assessment of the health value of bottled teas is accurate.
Ah, now I know where I got the idea for the cold-brewed iced tea. It’s from reading this post.
http://blog.thesimpleleaf.com/2006/08/08/making-cold-infused-iced-tea/
Sandy, I find it interesting that the big tea organizations formed to promote specialty tea don’t pound on that issue. Hmmm. Instead they talk about how RTD teas are growing so quickly in sales, etc. when that really has nothing to do with the lack of tea’s benefits to the people drinking them (other than wet and cold) or promoting the real benefits of tea. But I am not going to ‘stir the pot’, no pun intended.
One of the largest tea chains prebrews their teas into a concentrated form and then adds water at point of sale in many cases. This 5 minutes to an hour of degradation of the polyphenols certainly wouldn’t make that a selling point.
That timeline just seems like a huge issue to me when we are promoting the health benefits of tea.