Buy me some of this and I will love you forever!

OK.

There is something that I have had on my mind for a while now and I just need to share.

In fact, I can’t get it out of my mind because it is so freaking beautiful.

Yes.

It’s a tea.

The weird thing is, I have never even tasted it, but I just know that one day when I finally do it is going to be so freaking good!

The Tea in Question

The tea in question is a tea sold by Samovar in the USA. It is a tea that they supply called Green Ecstasy and it looks like my idea of heaven.

You see, I am very much a green tea man. It is certainly what I will generally automatically choose on a day to day basis. But this stuff looks like the mother of all green teas!

It is a beautiful first-flush Sencha tea coated with a kiss of beautiful high grade Matcha tea! To a huge green tea fan like me it just sounds so good!

So, what is the problem? Why am I being so emo about this?

Simply put, I can’t justify buying this tea at the moment. At $45.00 for a 50gram bag, it is certainly not the most expensive tea in the world, and I am sure that it is worth every penny, but, it is still a lot to shell out at once for a single bag of tea, especially when you have a wife who does not quite yet appreciate tea in the same way that I do.

However, I do have permission to treat myself to some of this tea as a Christmas present to myself.

I guess until then I will just have to fantasise about drinking this beauty. Unless you fancy buying me some?

Roll on Christmas.

[This post is part of The Ultimate Iced Tea Guide series]

As I am writing this post I am chilling in the garden, it’s the summertime, the dog is happily running around, the sun is beating down on my legs, and life is good. What makes it extra good is the fact that I am sipping on some Green Iced Tea with Jasmine, Apple and Honey. It’s cooling me down, and it’s natural. What could be better?

What I am trying to do here with this series about iced tea is show you how easy it is to enjoy iced tea when it is too hot to drink hot tea. Plus it can be a much healthier and more natural option, especially if we are talking in terms of reaching for a soda. Don’t get me wrong, I love coca-cola as much as the next person, but there is a huge sense of wellbeing in drinking something that has been cheap to prepare, is 100% natural and contains way less sugar!

The Iced Tea

This tea is a super tasty and refreshing green iced tea. It was certainly a hit in my household, and from the feedback it was particularly floral and refreshing. The flavours in here really compliment each other, and the honey brings a subtle and natural sweetness which pulls everything together.

This tea is extremely easy to prepare, the recipe is as follows:

The Recipe

 You Will Need:

• 1 Litre of cold brewed green jasmine tea
• 500ml Apple juice
• Honey to taste

The Process

1. Cold brew your green jasmine tea
   For this, I picked up some fairly inexpensive loose leaf green and jasmine tea from my local Chinese supermarket (Wing Yip). This is the sort of green tea that you will get served at most Chinese restaurants. I then followed my process for Cold Brewing Iced Tea. Make sure that your tea has infused overnight and that you have strained the tea before moving onto the next step.
2. Make sure that your cold brewed tea is in a jug or pitcher and add 500ml of apple juice
   The quantity is flexible, please feel free to use quantities that work best for you. For me, about 1/3 apple juice is just perfect! Obviously, if you have a juicer and can make fresh apple juice that is ideal and will make your iced tea even tastier! Otherwise a nice non-concentrate cloudy apple juice like the one I used from Marks & Spencer will certainly be perfect!
3. Add a tablespoon or so of honey and stir in thoroughly
   I have used honey here instead of sugar. My main reason for this is that honey is a lot more natural than refined sugar and has a lot more health benefits. It’s quite easy to find really lovely quality local honey in most areas and I highly recommend using something like that if you can get hold of it!  As for quantity, this can be changed based on individual taste.
4. Pour and enjoy!
   You will now have yourself and extremely tasty, quality iced tea. Enjoy!

This is me at a beautiful tea room in Berlin.

Tea is the tastiest when it is shared with people that you love, and this trip to the Tadjikistan Tearoom in Berlin, was amazing quality tea, with amazing quality people.

I have the feeling that tea rooms like this are pretty rare, but I am determined to seek out more of them. This tea room was seriously special, with floor tables, beautiful pillows and fabric, pillars, and the most amazing teaware, each tea was served in a pot and cup to compliment it perfectly.

Between us we consumed various teas, some green, some black and smokey, some made from rose flowers, some served with a mint liquor. I wrote down a lot of the specifics of the tea that we drank, but unfortunately that notebook went through the wash! Oops.

Places like this have given me the passion that I have about tea today. I really don’t believe that you have scratched the surface of tea if you have not enjoyed tasty loose leaf tea, with friends, served in this sort of setting.

It brings a whole new meaning to tea, and having tea with the ones that you love.

Here are a couple more pictures that I took with my mobile phone during the tea session. They aren’t the best quality but hopefully they give you a feel for the atmosphere.

I was actually hugely inspired to show more pictures on this blog as a result of browsing through a particular tea blog recently, Green Leaf Tea. Nicole’s blog is made so much more valuable and interesting because of the fact that she publishes loads of really interesting pictures. I am definitely going to try and do that more, you can hold me to that!

Anyway, onto the pictures from the Tadjikistan Tearoom in Berlin, fun times indeed!

The Tea Table

A Smokey Black & Green Tea Blend

Friends...

Tasty Rose Tea

Tea Served With Mint Liquor

Be inspired. Tea is not simply there to quench thirst, it can and should be a truly memorable experience. It’s not just the tea itself that you need to think about, but the presentation, company, and atmosphere.

I hope for anyone who hasn’t had this kind of tea experience that you find some kind of tea room like this to enjoy with friends, as least once.

I also hope that you are inspired to create a memorable tea experience at home for friends and love ones. It has certainly inspired me to do that.

Right now I am on a very pleasant an relaxing break in Spain. That is why you haven’t been hearing from me so much!

I have been away for a week now, and I am feeling a bit deprived when it comes to tea. You see, for a start it is too hot to drink tea here, it’s beautiful sunshine. I have had such huge urges to make iced tea, but unfortunately it has not been easy finding loose leaf tea, which, as far as I am concerned is one of the Iced Tea Essential Items! Cold brewing how I miss you!

Anyway, enough about iced tea. Today, the hottest day of the holiday so far, we spent the morning browsing an awesome Spanish market. There were stalls of all kinds, but I especially enjoyed the food section of the market. There was a huge selection of tasty looking fresh produce, here are a couple of photos to give you a flavour:

So, you ask, how does this all relate to tea?

Well, though I have been very much tea deprived over the past week, I have had the pleasure of making a few tasty tea purchases. You see, when it comes to tea accessories, in fact, anything tea related, I simply can’t help myself. I love it!

One of my purchases this week was today at the market, when I got to the soap stand.

You see, I do love having really good quality artisan soap, I think that it all started when I last visited Germany and purchased some artisan lemongrass soap from a Sunday market in Berlin. Since then I haven’t been able to resist buying beautifully fragrant artisan soap when the opportunity arises!

The opportunity came up today.

That’s right, your eyes are not deceiving you, that is Green Tea Soap! Yay!

I may not have had much tea consumption this holiday, but at least now I can consume tea in a new and different way, I can wash with it!

Now I can smell of tea for the rest of the week!

Then when I get home I can go back to experimenting with Iced Tea!

Have you ever washed with tea?

[This post is part of The Ultimate Iced Tea Guide series]

As with many new things that we try in life, often we can be either forced or compelled to shell out a big outlay on buying new equipment even before we have dipped our toes in the water.

What I find with situations like this though is that often I either already own adequate equipment, or that it is possible to purchase simple equipment very cheaply so that I can test the water before going to whole way and shelling out a lot of cash for my new hobby.

I think that this is definitely true when it comes to iced tea. There is lots of cool equipment out there that can be very tempting as it is either extremely beautiful or extremely functional, or in many cases both!

I will be looking into some of this very funky and fancy teaware in future posts, however, for someone who is perhaps just making iced tea for the first time and wants to experiment for a while before making an investment in advanced accessories, or indeed someone who is simply wanting to make iced tea on a budget, you will probably have most of the iced tea essential items that you need in your cupboards already, and if not will easily be able to purchase them for under $10.

What Are These Iced Tea Essential Items?

Well, the essential items for making iced tea are an extremely short and simple list. I will list them here and give a brief explanation of each.

• Jug/Pitcher x2
  This is certainly a crucial item in your iced tea collection. You might, however, be wondering why I have suggested that you have two jugs. The reason for this is that my preferred method of infusing iced tea is cold brewing. As part of this process you put loose leaf tea in cold water in a jug, and then having infused it overnight strain it to remove the tea. Therefore having two jugs can be extremely useful to make this process very straightforward.
• Sieve or Tea Strainer
  As I have described above, my preferred method of infusing iced tea is cold brewing. Many people will have either a sieve or a tea strainer lying around the house which can be perfect for straining the iced tea after it has infused.
• Loose Leaf Tea
  As far as I am concerned having a good quality loose leaf tea is a must! It needn’t be anything too expensive, just something that you generally enjoy drinking normally. If you don’t have any loose leaf tea and are not wanting to spend money on getting hold of some then you can still use the cold brewing method with tea bags, however the quality may not be as high.
• Ice Cube Tray
  Iced tea served with ice is one of the most beautiful things on a hot summer day. For something so simple that makes the iced tea experience so delightful, it must be worth investing in an ice cube tray if you haven’t got one, right?
• Glass To Drink From
  This may be a bit of a “state the obvious” but I think it is good to think about what glass you are going to serve your iced tea in. If you are cold brewing your iced tea you should have a lovely clear brew that you simply must show of in a transparent glass!

These are literally all the things that you need to get started!

So if you have never made iced tea before, why not gather these things together, buy anything that you don’t already own, and try brewing your own iced tea for a healthy and refreshing summer drink? You can follow my cold brewing guide to get you started, and might I highly recommend my Green Iced Tea with Jasmine and Raspberry!

During my tea tasting adventures I haven’t spent much time with the much loved Chai Tea variety.

This is OK, because there is plenty of time. But I feel that soon I am going to have to do more research and tasting when it comes to Chai Tea.

Last week I came across something that really inspired me both when it comes to drinking Chai Tea but also just simply surrounding tea culture in general.

I am so excited when I see people getting involved in tea culture, promoting tea culture and making tea culture. An artist that I came across recently, Lucy Knisley, is someone who falls under that category.

The first piece of her work that I ever saw is the image below which is her household Chai Tea Syrup Recipe in a beautifully illustrated piece of art. Truly awesome.

It has really inspired me to experiment with Chai Tea. So thank you Lucy!

[Click for larger view]

Having seen this recipe, I was so impressed that I went straight away and ordered Lucy’s book, French Milk. The book isn’t strictly about tea, but definitely worth a look if this sort of art and documentation is something that you are into. I personally love these kinds of artistic books. More info below:

Recommended Reading

“During winter break of her senior year of college, cartoonist Lucy Knisley and her mother embarked on a six-week adventure in Paris to celebrate milestone birthdays: Lucy’s twenty-second, and her mother’s fiftieth, each angst-inducing for their own reasons. French Milk tells the story of it all through Lucy’s illustrations and photos. Filled with gorgeously charming drawings and photos of the sights, smells, and tastes of the City of Light, French Milk will make anyone pine for a tall glass of it – with a fondant, of course.”

Amazon USA
Amazon UK

[This post is part of The Ultimate Iced Tea Guide series]

I am extremely excited to be doing this series on Iced Tea at the moment. Not only is it a relatively new area for me that I am enjoying exploring, but also it’s just perfect because we are having some wonderful weather here in the UK right now. There couldn’t have been better timing for brewing lots of experimental iced teas at the moment to bring you some fantastic iced tea recipes.

Something that I am becoming increasingly interested in is local produce. In fact at the moment I am doing a lot of research and thought into the Locavore lifestyle.

Recently I took a fun day trip to a “pick your own” farm nearby and picked some beautiful berries. The strawberries got eaten pretty quickly, but I decided to puree and freeze the raspberries for a later date. Their fate became evident when a couple of days ago I was cold brewing some green jasmine iced tea. With the beautiful flowery flavour of the jasmine tea I knew that raspberry puree that I had in the freezer would be the perfect combination.

Here is the recipe for my Green Iced Tea with Jasmine and Raspberry

The Recipe

You Will Need:

• 1 Litre of cold brewed green jasmine tea
• 1 Small punnet of raspberries
  
• Sugar/honey to taste

The Process:

1. Cold brew your green jasmine tea
   For this, I picked up some fairly inexpensive loose leaf green and jasmine tea from my local Chinese supermarket (Wing Yip). This is the sort of green tea that you will get served at most Chinese restaurants. I then followed my process for Cold Brewing Iced Tea. Make sure that your tea has infused overnight and that you have strained the tea before moving onto the next step.
2. Puree your raspberries
   To do this I simply put the raspberries through the blender and then strained the puree through a sieve to get rid of the pips.
3. Combine the tea and the raspberry puree in a jug/pitcher
4. Pour and enjoy – add sugar/honey to taste
   I tend to leave the jug of iced tea in the fridge unsweetened as people in the house have different tastes. Then the drill is simply pour yourself a glass,add sugar or honey to taste and enjoy a cool and tasty iced tea!

I really hope that you try and enjoy this recipe. Please let me know how you like it in the comments below!

[This post is part of The Ultimate Iced Tea Guide series]

As we begin this series about Iced Tea I want to first talk a little bit about basic brewing for Iced Tea.

Obviously when you are brewing regular tea that you are going to enjoy warm, you would brew it hot and normally only steep it for anything between a few seconds and a couple of minutes depending on what type of tea you are brewing.

Cold brewing iced tea is a different kettle of fish, but is going to be crucial if you want to enjoy the perfect iced tea!

Benefits of Cold Brewing Tea

There are a few benefits to cold brewing tea for iced tea drinks, here are a few:

• The tea will remain beautiful and clear
  Often with iced tea that is brewed hot, the liquid can go very cloudy. This is not the end of the world, but if you are wanting to produce something that tastes and looks stunning then cold brewing is definitely the way forward.
• Cold brewing is a lot more forgiving
  When brewing tea hot you have to really get things right to make sure that it tastes it’s best. This includes making sure that you have the correct water temperature, balance of tea & hot water, brewing time, etc. With cold brewing you are leaving the tea to infuse for an extremely long period of time, and because it infuses in a more gentle way will be hugely more forgiving when it comes to the brewing process.
• Cold brewed tea will leave less of a bitter taste in your mouth
  Tea brewed this way will naturally have less tannins which will make it a lot more of a gentle taste which will be pleasing to the palate.

How To Cold Brew Tea

Cold brewing tea is so straightforward. When I first found out about it I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t been doing it to make iced tea before. By the end of this current blog series I know that you are going to love iced tea and cold brewing is going to become your new best friend!

You will need:

• A large jug/pitcher
• Your favorite loose leaf tea (or if you really can’t manage that, tea bags will work)
• Water
• A tea strainer (or if you don’t have one to hand a sieve would do the job!)

The process:

1. Put in the jug your desired amount of tea
   I tend to be quite generous and put around 10% of the volume of the container tea and 90% water. This is because cold brewing tea does not produce as intense a flavor as brewing tea hot. However, the benefit of that is that the tea will be less bitter, plus color wise won’t go cloudy, staying nice and clear.
2. Fill up your jug with cold water
   You don’t have to be picky about the water, tap water will do just fine. I normally use filtered tap water that has gone through our Brita filter. If you are someone who prefers to use bottled spring water then that is perfectly acceptable.
3. Leave the jug in the fridge to infuse overnight
   Generally overnight will be long enough for the tea to infuse, however this process of brewing is so forgiving that you could leave the tea to infuse for 24 hours or more and it would still come out perfectly fine.
4. Strain the tea to remove the tea leaves
   Use your tea strainer to strain the tea leaving your beautiful, tasty, cold iced tea
5. Enjoy your tea
   Your tea is now ready to enjoy straight away! Depending on your taste you can drink it as it is, add something to sweeten it, or blend it with something sweet like fruit to enjoy as a refreshing fruity drink! Stay tuned to the posts in this series for some tasty recipes ideas for iced tea variations.

Beginner Cold Brewing Tips

If you are cold brewing tea for the first time I recommend that you go with something gentle and sweet that is going to taste smooth and sweet cold.

Personally when I first started cold brewing iced tea I used a fairly inexpensive blended green tea with jasmine flowers found at a local Chinese supermarket.

In my opinion this makes a great first-timer cold brewed tea!