Ingredients for making Milky Chai Slushie

Spices

Basic ingredient to any good masala chai is a fragrant spice mix. While there are many delicious pre-made chai blends, nothing is better than making your own mix from a scratch.

This recipe is made with cloves, cardamom, mace blade and cinnamon. All of them, except mace blade, are quite common in making masala tea. Mace blades are outer layers of nutmeg and they are super fragrant. Always use fresh spices and crush them using pestle and mortar.

Milk

Whenever you are making milky tea, you want to use full fat or even full cream milk that will be able to hold all those flavours together and still offer a rich and full texture. Using whole milk is a must.

Tea

Proper chai requires a proper black tea. The most common tea to use is strong broken Assam tea or CTC Asaam tea. CTC and broken leaves will infuse into a much bolder and stronger tea. Tea doesn’t need to be expensive. In fact, chai is rarely made with super high-quality tea. However, it has to be fragrant. Use tea leaves that are fresh because it will have a tremendous impact on the flavour.

Ice

You’ll need lots of ice. Although there are many ways of making slushies at home, this is by far the easiest one. It may not be a classic recipe as it doesn’t require any special steps or freezing. However, most importantly, it has a slushie texture.

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Homemade Masala Chai Milky Slushie

Super aromatic and easy to make summer recipe

Course Drinks

Keyword Black Tea, Chai, Sluhie, Spiced Tea

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes minutes

Servings 1

Equipment

• Blender
• saucepan
• Serving glass

Ingredients

• 3 cloves
• 2 cardamom pods
• Small piece, about 1 cm mace blade
• 2 cm cinnamon stick
• 150 ml milk
• 50 ml water
• 1 heaped teaspoon CTC Assam tea
• Cup of ice
• 3-4 teaspoons brown sugar once you blend it,the sweetness will reduce

Instructions

• Gather all spices and crush them using a pestle and mortar.
• Add spices into a small, preheated saucepan and heat them over low heat until fragrant. This will take less than a minute.
• Add water and tea leaves, increase the heat to medium and bring it to a boil.
• Add milk and bring it to a boil again, then reduce to low, add sugar and simmer for 5 minutes.
• Strain the tea into a cup. Let it cool for 5-10 minutes.
• Add ice, tea and ice into a blender and blend for a minute or until fully blended.
• Pour into a serving glass and serve immediately.

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What’s in Jasmine Green Tea?

BOH, a tea company with a 100-year history, is the biggest Malaysian tea producer. If you visit Malaysia, there’s a high chance you’ll run into BOH’s teas. You can get them from supermarkets, and you’ll find them in hotels too. This Jasmine green tea comes from Cameron Highlands, where most of Malaysian tea is growing. It’s flavoured with a natural jasmine flavour, and it smells absolutely delicious.

What’s also interesting is that Malaysia is not only producing small quantities of tea, but most of its tea is black.

Ever heard of Teh Tarik? It’s a type of Malaysian milk tea, and it’s easy to make at home too!

Boh Jasmine green tea is very far from a typical from a regular supermarket jasmine teas. It’s playful, vibrant, fresh, with a beautiful and intense jasmine scent. It almost feels as if you are smelling fresh flowers, rather than tea. The whole blend feels light and airy.

This tea is available only in classic tea bags.

How to brew this tea?   

To make the best cup of green tea, always bring fresh water to a boil and let it cool down to 80 degrees Celsius. Steep one tea bag for 2-3 minutes in a cup of water. Temperature is quite important for this tea, as it has a slight astringency if over brewed. However, this is quite common with traditional tea bags, especially with green tea.

Once brewed, both scent and flavour are exactly the same as the scent of dry leaves. This tea feels quite rich, with a light natural sweetness. Although this tea can easily be described as a full-bodied green tea, it feels light. While the jasmine scent and flavour are very pronounced, they are not overpowering. Jasmine is present as an aftertaste too.

Because of a beautiful jasmine scent, this tea is a wonderful choice for a relaxing me-time. Who would like this tea? If you love the scent of jasmine flowers and love full-bodied green teas, you’ll love this tea too. Since it’s quite deep and flavourful, this would be a great tea for making a proper sweetened iced tea too. However, if you are prefer classic jasmine teas, you may find the scent too intense.

Tea Recap

Water or milk? Water

Day or night? Day

Hot or iced? Hot or cold

Sweetened or pure? Pure or sweetened.

Caffeine? Yes

What’s the price? $4.40

Where to buy? Get it from BOH website.

The post BOH – Jasmine Green – Malaysian Jasmine Tea appeared first on All That Tea.

What is Lemon Curd Tea?

First, let’s talk about lemon curd. Lemon curd is a dessert spread made with lemons, butter, sugar and egg. It’s smooth and zesty and can be used for baking or enjoyed simply spread over bread. Lemon curd is so tasty that it really deserves a tea of its own. With the Lemon Curd Tea, Fortnum & Mason have made that a reality.

Lemon Curd Tea is made with green tea, white hibiscus, liquorice root, lemon peel and lemon curd flavouring. It comes in individually wrapped pyramid tea bags with loose tea. The packaging is pretty and cheerful and has a feel of a proper desert blend. In short, super pretty and exciting.  

This tea has only a few ingredients, and all of them contribute to the flavour. Perhaps, the most interesting one is white hibiscus, not as common in tea as its red counterpart. Hibiscus is an amazing ingredient that gives a perfect amount of tartness and is not as sour as lemon. A big difference between red and white hibiscus is that the white one won’t colour the tea. There’s also liquorice, a natural sweetener that is perfect for balancing this blend.

How to make this tea?

Lemon Curd is a loose tea in pyramid tea bags. That means it’s easier to brew than loose tea but offers a better flavour than a classic tea bag. Bring fresh water to a boil and let it cool down to 80 degrees Celsius. Steep one tea bag in 150-200 of water for 3 minutes. 

It brews into a light-coloured tea with a delicate, but deep and rich scent of lemon. There’s absolutely no astringency and green tea serves as a perfect base for this tea. It’s not grassy, it’s not smoky, it’s just smooth and rich to carry all the flavours and combine them into a true dessert tea.

Lemon Curd tea has a surprisingly delicate and refreshing flavour with gentle sweetness, zesty and creamy mouthfeel and a gentle lingering tartness of white hibiscus. It’s not overpowering, and yet it has a very rich flavour with incredible lightness.

This tea doesn’t need any condiments, but both sugar and honey would be good for this tea.

Lemon Curd green tea would be perfect for tea drinkers that like the flavour of lemon and fruity teas. Although the base for this blend is a green tea, it’s very far from a typical pure green tea flavour. It’s delicate and light and would be great for tea drinkers that rarely drink green tea, because they don’t enjoy grassy or smoky flavours or don’t like the bitterness.

At £6.95, this tea has a lot of expectations to fulfil, and it fulfils all of them. It’s a blend that’s just perfect for special me-times, when you want to feel happy, relaxed and pampered. It’s delicious, unique, and most importantly, it really tastes like lemon curd.

Tea Recap

Water or milk? Water

Day or night? Day

Hot or iced? Hot or cold

Sweetened or pure? Pure or sweetened.

Caffeine? Yes

What’s the price? £6.95

Where to buy? Get it from the Fortnum & Mason website.

The post Lemon Curd Tea – Fortnum & Mason appeared first on All That Tea.

Ingredients for making chewy oat cookies

Oats

Regular porridge oats or rolled oats will both work will with this recipe. Avoid using instant oats or flavoured oats.

Flour

Choose a wholemeal, or even better, malted or malted seeded bread flour. Although you can replace it with regular white flour, wholemeal or malted flour has a better nutritional value (including fibre) than regular while flour.

Sweetener

Maple syrup is a perfect sweetener for these schewy oat cookies. It will give a distinctive flavour and a perfect amount of sweetness. You can replace maple syrup with honey. A thing to keep in mind is that honey is usually slightly sweeter. 50 grams of maple syrup will be enough (together with currants) to make this recipe a treat. However, it’s much less than any regular sugar cookie or oat cookie usually contains.

Spices

Instead of using regular vanilla flavour, opt for spices instead. Nutmeg, cinnamon or cloves will make these cookies taste invitingly aromatic. Just one spice will be enough to elevate the flavour. However, you can also use a pre-made mix of spices.

Coconut oil

Cold-pressed coconut oil is a great and slightly healthier replacement for butter and a wonderful choice if you want to add a light coconut touch to oat cookies. Plus, it’s suitable for vegans. If you don’t like the coconut flavour, use refined rather than cold-pressed coconut oil.

Greek yogurt

Greek yogurt will make these cookies softer and chewier. For a vegan friendly alternative, use either a homemade apple sauce or coconut milk (canned).

What else to add to chewy oat cookies?

Chewy oat cookies are super customisable, and you can add different ingredients to make them even more irresistible:

• coconut flakes – great additional for all coconut loves, especially if you are using cold-pressed coconut oil
• sultanas or currants – add them if you like sweet cookies
• chocolate chips – irresistible in oat cookies, but avoid them if you want this recipe to be vegan or if you wan to keep it lower in calories
• roasted and chopped hazelnuts – they will add a bit more crunch and flavour
• sunflower or pumpkin seeds – great ingredient to use especially if you are making these cookies with malted seeded bread flour

Once baked, drizzle the cookies with white, milk, dark or matcha chocolate.

How to make chewy oat cookies?

These cookies are super easy to make, and they won’t fail you even if you are completely new to baking.

1. Mix all dry ingredients.
2. Add them to wet ingredients and mix into a dough with hands.
3. Form into cookie shape and bake.

Optionally, you can drizzle with chocolate. There’s no mixing or whisking, which makes is easy enough for anyone to make. It will only take up to 10 minutes of your time, plus the baking and cooling time. These cookies are incredibly soft and chewy, which is not always the case with oat cookies. They will stay fresh and soft for several days. Store them in an airtight container.

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Soft & Chewy Oat Cookies

Easy oatmeal cookies – vegan friendly version included

Course Dessert

Keyword cookies, Matcha, oatmeal

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 17 minutes minutes

Servings 30 cookies

Equipment

• small saucepan
• Baking tray
• mixing bowl
• Baking paper

Ingredients

• 150 grams of oats
• 100 grams of malted and seeded bread flour
• 60 grams of cold-pressed coconut oil
• 1 1/3 teaspoon baking powder (around 6-7 grams)
• 50 grams of maple syrup (for less sweet cookies) add 20-50 grams more if youlike sweeter cookies or are not using any dried fruits or chocolate chips
• 80 grams of Greek yogurt
• 1/3 teaspoon nutmeg
• 50 grams of currants

For matcha chocolate

• 30-50 grams of white chocolate
• 1/3 – 1/2 teaspoon of matcha powder (sifted)

Instructions

• Place a baking paper on the baking tray and preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius. ( 374°F or gas mark 5)
• Place all dry ingredients (oats, flour, baking powder, nutmeg) into a bowl and mix WELL.
• Add wet ingredients (coconut oil, maple syrup, greek yogurt) into dry ingredients. Add currants (or if you are using other ingredients such as chocolate chips, hazelnuts, etc).
• Mix it well using hands. Dough will be slightly sticky.
• Make small 1 1/2 cm balls and place them on the baking paper. Gently press them to flatten them out, to about 3-4 mm height.
• Bake for 16-18 minutes at 190 degrees Celsius.
• Let them cool for 15-20 minutes.
• Melt white chocolate. Use ½ of the chocolate and start melting it on VERY LOW heat while continuously stirring. Once fully melted, remove from the heat. Add the rest of the chocolate and stir until melted. Add SIFTED matcha powder and stir until fully incorporated – there should be no lumps. Immediately drizzle over cookies.

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What’s in Basilur Jasmine Green Tea

Classic jasmine green tea is made with Chinese green tea leaves, scented with fresh jasmine flowers. This process is repeated until the tea is fragrant enough, and all flowers are removed. Today, there are different ways of making jasmine green tea. Some blends may contain dried jasmin blossoms, other are flavoured with natural flavourings. Scenting and flavouring are different processes that result in different flavours as well.

So what’s in Basilur Jasmine green tea? First, it’s made with Ceylon (Sri Lankan) green tea, rather than Chinese tea. Next, this tea is flavoured with a natural jasmine flavour, rather than scented. And you’ll see both things immediately upon opening the pouch.

The first thing you’ll notice is an intense sweet jasmine scent. There’s no deep smokiness like with many other jasmine green teas. Instead, it’s very sweet and floral, on the verge of being perfumy. As it is extremely strong, this scent may not be for everyone. However, it’s also extremely pleasant and inviting.

How does it taste?

To make a cup of jasmine green tea, bring fresh water to a boil and let it cool down to 80-85 degrees Celsius. Use 1 heaped teaspoon or 1 tea bag per cup of water and steep for 2-3 minutes.

This tea has a very perfumy flavour that feels sweet. There’s absolutely no bitterness at all in this tea. It feels very delicate, which is quite uncommon for jasmine green tea, especially tea bags. Classic tea bags contain dust and small leaf particles and often result in a bitter and strong infusion.

Green tea in this blend is light, and the jasmine flavour is lighter than the scent might suggest. However, it’s strong enough to serve it iced. It would be a perfect treat for spring and summer afternoon tea parties.

If you love the scent of jasmine, especially jasmine essential oils, rather than classic jasmine teas, you will love this tea, too. In fact, even if you don’t like classic jasmine teas, you may find this tea inviting. This tea would appeal to those that like strong flavours, but don’t like the bitterness common in jasmine green teas. It’s quite surprising for a jasmine green tea in a traditional tea bag not to have any bitterness at all. However, if you don’t like perfumy blends, you won’t like Basilur’s jasmine green tea, either.

Tea Recap

Water or milk? Water

Day or night? Day

Hot or iced? Hot or iced

Sweetened or pure? Pure or with honey

Caffeine? Yes

Where to buy? Get it from Amazon.

The post Basilur Jasmine Tea appeared first on All That Tea.

What’s in Coconut Matcha Pre-Mix?

Coconut matcha pre-mix is a matcha tea with natural coconut flavouring and cane sugar. In fact, it contains a lot of sugar – 75% of this pre-mix is cane sugar, and 25% is organic Japanese matcha. That is perhaps one of the highest amounts of sugar in a pre-made matcha mix on the western market. This means, if you are using one teaspoon of mix per cup of water, you’ll be drinking 3 grams of sugar. Which is actually not that much at all – that is, if you like sweet drinks. For comparison, 1 packet of sugar or 1 sugar cube contain 4 grams of sugar each.

This blend contains caffeine too. However, the caffeine content of 1 teaspoon of this blend will b lower than a caffeine content of 1 teaspoon of pure matcha powder. Therefore, it may be a good choice if you want to reduce the caffeine intake.

Coconut matcha pre-mix smells super nice. There are a lot of green matcha notes coming through an intense creamy coconut scent and it smells very sweet. So, what’s good about pre-mix blends? They differ slightly from regular matcha powder, as you can use them straight from the pouch, with no need for sifting or extensive whisking. Plus, they usually already contain a sweetener.

How to make this tea?

The best way to make this tea is using hot water to dissolve it, then topping it up with cold water and serving with ice. This, however, doesn’t mean you can’t drink it hot. But when made with hot water, it will be a VERY sweet drink. For some tea drinkers, this may be just too much sweetness.  

This matcha is not suitable for whisking because of a high sugar content, so it’s better to use an electric frother instead or simply shake it in a water bottle.

To make a cup of coconut matcha, use ½-1 teaspoon of powder and mix it with hot water at 80 degrees Celsius. To make matcha milk tea, use ½-1 teaspoon of tea powder, add 50-70 ml water and top up with cold milk or steamed and frothed milk.

We tried both and the best way is by far to drink it with milk:

• with frothed and steamed milk served as hot latte or plus ice as iced latte
• topped with cold milk and served with ice as iced matcha milk tea

Milk will reduce sweetness significantly, and it will feel like a completely different tea, leaving only coconut and matcha to dominate the blend.

It’s one of those teas you need to treat as a dessert, especially if you are using 2 rather than 1 teaspoon of pre-mix. Because the sugar content is so high, it may not be a suitable replacement for a pure matcha powder, especially if you love the pure unsweetened flavour of matcha.

Who may like this tea? If you prefer very sweet drinks, this is a tea for you. However, it’s not suitable for tea drinkers that want to drink matcha traditionally. It’s great for making lattes or iced milk teas. As a dessert blend served with milk and/or ice, it tastes delicious. It’s perfect for spring and summer garden tea parties, or even as an after-gym drink.

Coconut Matcha Tea Recap

Water or milk? Water or milk

Day or night? Day

Hot or iced? Hot or cold

Sweetened or pure? Pure as it already contains sugar

Caffeine? Yes

What’s the price? £6.91 on Tealyra website (100 grams pouch)

Where to buy? Get it from Tealyra website

More coconut teas:

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What’s in Vanilla Matcha?

Vanilla Matcha is a tea powder blended with Japanese matcha tea from Shizuoka and Madagascar vanilla. Shizuoka is the largest tea producing prefecture in Japan, however, most of the tea produced is sencha. Many matcha powders from Shizuoka that are available in western countries are of the culinary grade that are perfect for blending with other powders. Culinary grade matcha is typically used for baking or preparing different drinks.

Vanilla Matcha powder from Vahdam is a culinary grade matcha too. It’s best used for non-traditional drinks, such as lattes, iced teas with or without milk, or for baking. This matcha has a beautiful vanilla scent that’s so strong it will fill the entire room. If you love the scent of vanilla, you’ll love this tea too. Another significant benefit is that it doesn’t contain any artificial or natural flavourings or colour, only pure powders. Powder itself is slightly darker and not as intensely green as most pure ceremonial grade matcha teas, however, it’s worth keeping in mind it’s blended with another powder. That said, vanilla powder will influence not only the flavour, but the colour too.  

How to prepare Vanilla Matcha?

You can use flavoured matcha powders for making different drinks such as hot or cold lattes or iced teas. Although you can prepare this powder traditionally, it won’t froth so much when using a chasen. In that case, an electric hand frother may be a better option. It will create lots of foam that won’t disappear so fast.

Vanilla Matcha is an unsweetened tea that feels sweet because of vanilla. It has a wonderful balance of green tea bitterness and vanilla sweetness and is great for tea drinkers that want something a bit different, but still with no natural or artificial flavourings.

The best way to use it is perhaps for making matcha lattes or boba teas. Prepared with full fat milk, it will offer just the right amount of sweetness. If you enjoy sweeter teas, some honey or regular sugar are a wonderful choice.

Since vanilla matcha from Vahdam is blended with culinary grade matcha, it’s better for baking or making lattes than for preparing tea traditionally. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it pure.  

Vanilla is quite dominant in this blend, blending nicely with bitter and green taste of this matcha powder. It’s not as vibrant, sweet or complex as some ceremonial grades Japanese matcha teas, but it has a perfect amount of sweetness, matcha grassiness and an incredible vanilla aroma.

This is a great tea if you want to include matcha into your tea routine but can’t quite get used to the matcha flavour. It’s also amazing for lattes or different desserts. And if you love vanilla, you will absolutely love it.

Tea Recap

Water or milk? Water or milk

Day or night? Day

Hot or iced? Hot or cold

Sweetened or pure? Pure or sweetened

Caffeine? Yes

What’s the price? £9.98 on Amazon or $9.99 (Vahdam site).

Where to buy? Get it from Vahdam website (USA) or Amazon.co.uk

More vanilla teas:

The post Vanilla Matcha Powder – Vahdam appeared first on All That Tea.

What makes iced tea good?

What makes is so good is the intensity of flavours, perfect sweetness and lots of ice. Iced teas are typically sweetened, although you can drink them pure if they are not bitter. To get the best intensity, you need to find the best tea to water ratio.

Do you have to boil water to make iced tea?

Yes, it’s always best to make an iced tea by steeping tea leaves in boiled water first. If you don’t have too much ice, you can steep the tea beforehand and let it cool in the fridge. This is not the same as cold brewing.

Is cold brew tea the same as iced tea?

Cold brewing is a different method of preparing tea. Instead of using hot water, cold brewed teas are slowly steeped in cold water over several hours in the fridge. You don’t need any ice for cold brewing, or a kettle. Cold brewing will significantly change the flavour profile and nutrient content of brewed tea. Iced tea will have the same flavour profile as regularly brewed tea, except it tends to be stronger.

Tips for making the best iced tea

Making an iced tea at home is easy, but it’s not always straightforward. This is especially true if you are used to drinking pre-made teas. Pre-made iced teas may not always contain tea leaves and may also contain lots of sugar and fruit flavourings. All this will impact the flavour that won’t be easy to replicate at home. However, that’s perfectly ok, as you can make delicious, super flavourful drinks at home using ingredients you already have in your pantry.  

So, how to make the best tasting iced tea?

Here are the 9 simple tips.

1. Choose the right tea

You can use almost any tea you want. However, just like when making a cup of hot tea, if you want to get the best flavour, you have to have the best tea. Best tea doesn’t mean the most expensive tea, but it should be fresh and flavourful.

What tea is best for iced tea? Traditionally, this type of tea has been made with mostly tea bags. Tea bags are a good option if you want to add sugar or honey and prefer an intense flavour. Some traditional tea bags may give a murky and bitter tea. Test it out before. If it tastes good without a sweetener, it will be great for making an iced tea too.

Loose tea leaves, especially pure, will often have less bitterness, and a more complex flavour. Flavoured teas are an amazing choice as well.

But if you want to use pure teas, you can add flavour with:

• Food flavourings
• Steeping it with fresh fruits
• Fruit juices
• Fruit syrups

2. Make a strong infusion

To make the best cup of iced tea, use more leaves than normally. Adding only 50% more will intensify the flavour significantly. 1 ½ or 2 teaspoons of tea leaves per serving will give much more flavour than brewing it for 10 minutes. Over brewing may also increase the bitterness, while adding more tea leaves will intensify the flavour. Furthermore, as the ice melts, tea will become diluted. That’s why it’s always a good idea to add more tea leaves.

So what is the ratio of tea to water for iced tea?

If you are using:

• loose tea, use 1 ½ – 2 teaspoons of tea leaves per serving.
• traditional tea bags, use 1 or 2 tea bags, depending on their strength. Most tea bags will contain dust and fannings that will infuse into a strong tea, so one will be enough.
• pyramid tea bags with loose tea, you may need to add two, rather than one, depending on how many tea leaves they contain.

Use 120-150 ml of water for steeping the tea, then top up with fresh cold water later.

3. Don’t over brew it

Never over brew your tea when making an iced tea. Sure, both sugar and ice will reduce the bitterness, but ideally, you want a flavour that will taste good even without adding sweeteners. How long do you steep tea for iced tea? You can steep the tea leaves a minute or two longer than usual, but not more. This means, 4-6 minutes for black teas, and 3-5 minutes for green teas, 3-5 minutes for oolong teas and 5-10 minutes for herbal teas.

4. Add the right sweetener

If you want to make iced tea that will taste similar to drinks from supermarkets or restaurants, then you will need to add a sweetener.

White or brown sugar and floral honey are all great for sweetening iced tea. Always add sugar or honey before adding ice, so it can dissolve better. For making a calorie-free drink, you can use stevia or sugar alternatives. Iced teas are usually always sweetened.

Some sweeteners you can try:

• Honey
• White granulated sugar
• Brown granulated sugar
• Stevia (calorie free)
• Coconut flower sugar
• Simple syrup
• Flavoured sweeteners (calorie free)
• Xylitol (less calories than sugar)

5. Add more flavour with flavoured ice

You can add more flavour into your iced tea by adding flavoured ice or tea ice cubes. Because tea ice cubes are made with tea, they will not dilute your iced tea. Find the instructions for making iced tea cubes here.

Some wonderful combinations:

• Pure green tea with tropical green tea ice cubes
• Pure black tea with coconut black tea ice cubes
• Pure green tea with earl grey black tea ice cubes

6. Add citruses

Adding freshly squeezed lemon juice to green or black tea will always elevate the flavour. Lemon goes well with many tea types, but don’t add it to chocolate or nut flavoured teas. Other great citruses to add are oranges and limes.

7. Add fresh fruits

For a super fruity flavour, you can add washed and chopped fruit pieces, and steep them together with black or green tea for 5 minutes. Once ready, pour it into a glass, add sweetener and ice. Fresh fruits will make your black tea brighter and super flavourful, regardless of if you are using loose tea or tea bags.

8. Choose special iced tea blends

Many brands are offering special tea blends crafted specifically for making iced teas. These blends will have lots of flavour and usually smaller tea leaves. Although you can use any tea blend you want, special tea blends will usually always offer a desired strength and flavour. You can also use pre-made cold brew blends and brew them with hot water.

9. Use high-quality water

Water quality will significantly impact the flavour of any tea – hot or iced. Use colourless and odourless water that’s not too flat and not too hard. Avoid distilled water. Using tap water will usually be fine, unless it’s murky and smells of chemicals. If that’s the case, bottled spring water may be a better choice. Also, avoid re-heating the same water multiple times.

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How to make iced tea

The BEST homemade iced tea

Course Drinks

Keyword Iced Tea

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Servings 1

Equipment

• Kettle
• Serving glass

Ingredients

• 1/2 – 2 teaspoons loose tea leaves or 1-2 teabags
• 150 ml freshly boiled water
• 1-2 teaspoons sugar
• 50-100 ml fresh cold water

Instructions

• Bring fresh water to a boil.
• Measure 1 ½ – 2 teaspoons of tea leaves* and steep them in 150 of water.**
• Strain the tea into a serving glass.
• Add sweetener and stir until dissolved.
• Add ice.
• Top up with fresh cold water.

Notes

* If you want to make a whole pitcher rather than just a glass of iced tea, use at least 2 tablespoons of tea leaves per 500 ml of water, then top up with more cold water later. If you are using tea bags, add 4-6 tea bags per 500 ml of water, and top up with cold water later.

** Black tea – 4-5 minutes at 95-98 degrees Celsius
     Green tea – 3-5 minutes at 75-85 degrees Celsius
     Oolong tea – 3-5 minutes at 85-90 degrees Celsius
     Rooibos and other herbal teas – 5-10 minutes at98 degrees Celsius

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What’s in Sobre?

Sobre is hard to define. It’s a green tea with mint, but then again, it has nothing in common with other green teas with mint. It’s a rooibos tea with eucalyptus, but it also has nothing to do with regular rooibos teas. Sobre is blended with red rooibos tea, Chinese jasmine green tea, peppermint, eucalyptus, freeze-dried strawberries, mallow flowers, blue cornflowers and natural flavouring.

It’s a colourful blend that smells unique. Scent is very intense, deep, sweet, with hints of earthy rooibos and incredible eucalyptus freshness. If you love the scent of eucalyptus, you’ll love the scent of this tea, too. Eucalyptus is not that common in tea blends, which is quite a shame, as it smells incredibly uplifting and soothing. It’s mostly used for respiratory problems, but it may provide many other benefits, including antimicrobial and antioxidant properties (1).

What does Sobre taste like?

Even though this blend contains green tea, it mostly a herbal blend with ingredients that can be steeped in boiling water. Use one teaspoon of tea leaves and steep in freshly boiled water for 2-3 minutes. It won’t become bitter even if you over-steep it.

Although the scent of dry leaves is intense, the flavour of this tea is quite the opposite. Flavour is light, earthy, with a touch of jasmine green tea, and a subtle and delicate fruitiness lingering in the background. There’s also an incredibly fresh aftertaste from the eucalyptus. Red rooibos is a wonderful choice for all these flavours, as it gives a strong and deep base for layering all other flavours.

This is not a peppermint tea even though it has a minty freshness. It’s not a fruit tea even though it has a light fruity sweetness. It’s not a jasmine tea, and it’s not a rooibos tea. It’s a wonderfully refreshing, deep but light herbal blend. Sobre is a very light, very easy to drink tea that offers an instant refreshment.

Even if you are not a fan of strong mint teas, strong rooibos teas, strong jasmine teas, you will probably like this blend. It’s one of those teas you’d imagine sipping on a spa day to freshen up and relax. There’s no bitterness either. It’s not a sweet tea, but it feels sweet. It doesn’t need any sweeteners, and in fact, if feels like adding some may actually ruin the tea.If you do need to make it sweeter, try it with a lighter honey.

Tea Recap

Water or milk? Water.

Day or night? Day or night.

Hot or iced? Hot or iced.

Sweetened or pure? Pure or with a teaspoon of honey.

Caffeine? Yes, but very little.

What’s the price? Starting from 4.75 GBP.

Where to buy? Get it from Biscuit & Brew website.

Sources

(1) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667031321000713

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What is Marrakesh Mint tea?

Marrakesh Mint tea is a type of tea typically made with gunpowder tea, fresh spearmint leaves, and lots of sugar. It’s served in small cups and it’s strong and sweet. Typically, it’s simmered rather than brewed. The first infusion lasts only a few seconds and is discarded, both to wash the leaves and reduce bitterness. Marrakesh mint tea is usually made with spearmint, which has a sweeter and less minty flavour than peppermint. However, there are no rules when it comes to tea blends. They may include different green teas, and different types of mint, too. Tea blends are not pre-sweetened and blended to give a distinctive flavour without the need to add sugar.

What’s in Teapigs Marrakesh Mint tea?

Teapigs mint blend contains Chinese chun mee (or zhen mei) green tea, which has a similar flavour to gunpowder, but slightly fresher and sharper, with a bit more smokiness. Just like gunpowder, it also brews into a strong tea with a darker colour. Gunpowder and chun mee green teas are two of the most commonly used teas for blending. They go well with a whole range of ingredients – from floral to fruity, chocolaty and spicy.

This tea contains 76% of chunmee tea and 24% of peppermint. It’s made with loose tea leaves rather than tea dust. What’s great about pyramid tea bags is that they will give exactly the same flavour as loose tea, plus they are easy brewing. Each tea pyramid bag contains 2.5 grams of tea, slightly over one heaped teaspoon.

What does it taste like?

Both gunpowder and chunmee tea will have a light bitterness when brewed over 3 minutes. Water temperature is extremely important too. You can brew this tea in 3 different ways, depending on your preferences:

1. Brew it 1-2 minutes at 80 degrees Celsius if you want to drink it pure.
2. Cold brew it in the fridge – this tea is perfect for cold brewing.
3. Brew it for 3 minutes if you want to add lots of sugar or serve it iced.

Neither green tea nor mint is overpowering in this blend. When brewed traditionally with hot water, peppermint is dominating the scent of brewed tea. Flavour is quite light, slightly lighter than it would be if you used fresh mint. It’s less sharp and more sweet than fresh mint too. There’s also a dose of astringency, which is common for chunmee teas.

Mint is dominating the flavour as well, blended with smoky and mellow chunmee base notes. Because of a light astringency, Marrakesh mint tea leaves a strong sweet and refreshing minty aftertaste. If you don’t like astringent teas but want to avoid adding sugar, try cold brewing it instead.  

This tea is a good choice for tea drinkers that enjoy mint teas, but don’t mind stronger green tea flavours with a light astringency. It’s a great after meal tea if you want something more than just mint, and great if you don’t like to add sugar to tea. However, it’s also great for making iced teas. When preparing it iced, steep it slightly longer and add a sweetener, sugar or honey.

Tea Recap

Water or milk? Water.

Day or night? Day.

Hot or iced? Hot or cold.

Sweetened or pure? Pure or sweetened.

Caffeine? Yes.

What’s the price? Starting from 2.00 GBP.

Where to buy? Get it from the Teapigs website or Teapigs Amazon store.

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