Making lemon iced tea at home is an easy process that requires less than 15 minutes. Be sure to watch the video!
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What is ‘Iced Tea’?
Iced Tea is brewed tea served cold over ice cubes. It is flavoured with lemon and other nectarines to balance the bitterness of tea leaves. Cold tea is one of the best summer drinks.
You can brew it light or strong, drink it unsweetened or sweetened. Once you’ve got the iced tea perfect – the creative possibilities are endless.
During the summer, nothing is more refreshing than a chilled glass of homemade lemon iced tea.
Here are a few Reasons To LOVE Homemade Iced Tea
- gluten and dairy-free
- requires only 4 ingredients
- highly customizable recipe
- no artificial flavouring agents
- inexpensive and budget-friendly
- zero preservatives and chemicals
- meal-prep friendly and easy to store
How To Make Iced Tea
For those who think making iced tea at home is utterly complex – let me prove you wrong. It requires less than 15 minutes to prepare iced tea.
Brewing: The first and foremost step in making a lemon iced tea is brewing the decoction.
- Boil water in a saucepan. Add sugar (if using) and stir to dissolve it. Turn off the heat.
- Add the tea leaves or the tea bags. Cover the pan with a lid. Allow the tea to steep for a minute or per your preference.
- Remove the tea bags and filter the brewed tea. Allow the liquid to cool down.
Flavouring: Once the brewed tea is ready, flavour it with lemon juice or fruit puree/juice of your choice.
Serving: Lemon Iced Tea tastes best when served on ice cubes with lemon wedges and fresh mint leaves.
Watch Lemon Iced Tea Video
My Tried and True Tips
- Brewing Time: Only one thing can go wrong while making a lemon iced tea – steeping the tea for too long. The steeping time for tea leaves is not more than 5 – 6 minutes.
- Always add lemon or fruit puree after cooling down the tea and not to the hot decoction.
- Tea Variety: While black tea provides a strong base that pairs well with lemon, you can experiment with green or white tea for a lighter, more delicate flavour.
- Never, ever boil the tea leaves in water. You only need to steep the tea leaves in warm water for the perfect colour and taste.
- Use good organic honey or maple syrup to sweeten your iced tea. Or if you don’t bother about the calories, then use granulated white sugar. You can customize it as per your preference. Like, make orange iced tea or mango iced tea with the addition of fruit flavours.
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Lemon Iced Tea Recipe
- Saucepan
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoon tea (chai patti)
- 4 glasses of water
- Juice of 2 lemons
- Honey/sugar to taste
Ingredients To Serve Lemon Iced Tea:
- lemon slices
- few fresh mint leaves
- ice cubes
Instructions
- Boil four cups of water in a saucepan. Add sugar (if using) and stir to dissolve it. Turn off the heat.
- Add the tea leaves or the tea bags. Cover the pan with a lid. Allow the tea to steep for a minute or as per your taste preference.
- Remove the tea bags and filter the brewed tea. Allow the liquid to cool down. You can keep brewed tea in the fridge to cool down.
- Add the lemon juice and sweeten the iced tea using honey (if not using sugar) according to your taste.
- Stir in the ice cubes. Add freshly cut lemon slices and mint leaves for some fresh flavor. Serve lemon iced tea chilled.
Recipe Notes:
- You can use tea bags as well instead of loose tea leaves. If you want a less strong iced tea, keep the brew time under 1 minute.
- You can increase or decrease the steeping or brewing time of the tea according to your taste preference. The longer tea is steeped the stronger will be the taste of iced tea. I prefer steeping tea for less than a minute.
- If you are using sugar as a sweetener, it is important to dissolve it in boiling water before adding tea leaves/tea bags.
- If you are not keen on adding white sugar, then use honey to sweeten the iced tea.
Rekha says
This is such a refreshing recipe.Love love this … Beautiful presentation!