I drink a fair amount of tea, but I’ve managed not to be insufferable about it the way I am about chocolate or Iris is about bacon. Mostly I stick to PG Tips, a mass-market English brand of black tea. Occasionally I’ll read an article about Darjeeling or something, and try some fancy tea, but I always end up going back.
Temperatures were in the 90s most of last week, so the last thing I wanted was a steaming cup of tea. I wanted iced tea. But I didn’t want to make a pitcher of iced tea and wait for it to get cold. I guess I could have made it extra-strong and then diluted it with ice, but it was 95 degrees and my brain wasn’t working, so I went to the store and bought some Cold Brew.
Cold Brew is Lipton tea bags you can brew in cold water. How does it work? I assume they grind the tea leaves to a powder. How does it taste? Not great, but fine for a hot day. And like all Lipton tea, it’s cheap.
I noticed this sage advice on Lipton’s web site:
> Hydration is key to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Tea is a great tasting way to get your necessary daily fluid intake.
It reminded me of something I saw at the supermarket, a bottle of water with the tagline, “No water hydrates faster!” I’m sure this is true, just as I’m sure it’s true that no water hydrates slower.
I guess there is a limit to how strong you can brew your tea, so the ice-cube method is not ideal. An alternative method is to brew the tea as normal and then place the tea pot in a large pot. Then you can put the pot in the sink and turn on the cold water so that water pours into the large pot and flows around the teapot, cooling it.
If you have a lot of cold, cheap water, it’s a good method for rapidly cooling your tea.
My favorite iced tea is Barnes & Watson Tahitian Blend. B&W is a local company, and lots of places used to sell this tea, but then Whole Foods stopped carrying it, then my local QFC stopped carrying it, so now I go down to the Perennial Tea Room to purchase it.
You do have to brew it hot, but for instant gratification, I just use the ice cube method you suggested. We (two of us) brewed about three pitchers of it during the heat spell last weekend, and sat on lawn chairs in our basement, imagining air conditioning.
Hu….Isn’t caffeine a diuretic? ;-)