7 Easy Ways to Upgrade Your Iced Tea

Iced tea is nice but wouldn’t it be better to have something different from the usual ice lemon or peach tea flavours? It’s easy to change a pitcher of ice tea into something more atas and exciting. Try these 7 easy upgrades when you’re brewing your next batch iced tea to keep you caffeinated when you’re WFH or even WFB (working from bed):

1. Start with good quality ingredients

Tea (or iced tea) isn’t anymore more than tea leaves steeped in water, so swap regular tea bags for pyramid-shaped bags from a good quality tea house. The latter contain larger leaves compared to regular tea bags that are often produced from tea dust – low grade, tiny, broken leaves.

2. Try different tea bases

Although classic iced tea is usually made with black tea leaves, new trending varieties include green and young white tea leaves as the base, or even caffeine-free teas such as herbals or rooibos.

3. Brew it cold

Just like cold brew coffee, cold brewed ice tea is also catching on. Instead of using hot water to brew tea, steep the tea leaves overnight in cold water. The resulting tea will have less tannins and should give you a smoother flavour. And it sounds much cooler to say cold brewed tea!

4. Add fruit and herbs

Fresh fruits floating around in a cold pitcher of water always look so healthy and inviting. Why not add them to your ice tea too? Berries, sliced stone fruit and even ginger slices can complement your ice tea and kick up the flavours one notch. Likewise, play around with herbs in the same way. For instance, add some fresh mint leaves to a glass of black ice lemon tea for a fresh minty zing.

5. Minimise watery ice cubes

Regular ice cubes will only dilute the tea flavour faster in your glass. Instead, use ice tea to make the ‘ice cubes’. Use any flavour of ice tea you prefer to keep your glass of ice tea cold and full of flavour for a much longer time. Bonus tip: Frozen fruit and herbs also make great alternatives to regular ice cubes, adding a burst of low calorie and low sugar flavour.

6. Sweeten with a liquid sweetener

Sweetening up your drink by just adding regular sugar won’t help. The sugar will most probably just sink to the bottom of your glass without dissolving. A better way is to add liquid sweeteners such as agave, honey or even maple syrup and stir them through. But if you prefer sugar, simmer equal parts sugar and water on the stove until the sugar is dissolved, and then simply stir in how much you want. Easy!

7. Add bubbles

Nothing looks sexier than a glass of something bubbly. Make your glass of ice tea super cool by spiking it with some spiced kombucha or flavoured sparkling water for the added bubble effect.