Cold drinks for hot weather! As seen on Cityline
If you caught the segment I did on Cityline that aired July 28th, I made a few cold tea and coffee drinks.
There isn’t ONE recipe that you need to stick to as you can adjust the ingredients to suit your taste.
Here are some tips that I breezed through during the segment:
For iced tea:
brew your tea stronger than you would drink it if it were hot. You’re adding ice which will water it down so you want the tea to be quite strong to start with.
Brew the tea with an extra tea bag or two versus letting the tea steep longer to make it stronger. If you leave the tea in longer; it tends to bet bitter. So just throw in more tea and steep for the regular amount of time to get a stronger brew.
If you want your iced tea to be sweet; add your sugar or sweetener when the tea is still hot/warm so it dissolves.
Adding sugar to iced tea makes it grainy. Or make a simple syrup and add it to your tea whenever you like.
SIMPLE SYRUP: add 1 cup of sugar to 1 cup of water and boil, simmer until sugar dissolves. aka sugar water.
FRUITY TEA SANGRIA
1:2 ratio of tea to wine
To a pitcher, add:
Brewed fruity tea, cooled
Berries, sliced oranges, lemons, lime (any fruit you like)
Add wine (red or white – whatever you like)
Chill for a few hours and serve over ice. * adjust the amount of tea and wine if you want it to be more or less boozy.
BLUEBERRY GREEN TEA SMOOTHIE
Brew green tea (add fresh mint leaves to this if you have them)
To blender, add:
handful of ice cubes
1 1/2 cups blueberries (or other fruit)
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 to 1 cup brewed cold tea
1 banana (thickens the smoothie)
Blend and drink right away
CARDAMOM SPICED ICED COFFEE
1 cup strong coffee or 2 shots espresso, cooled
Ice
1-2 tbsp condensed milk
splash of cream to taste (or dairy alternative – I use almond milk at home)
dash of ground cardamom (or grind fresh if you have cardamom pods) *use cinnamon if that’s what you have at home
Pour coffee/espresso over ice.
Add condensed milk, cardamom, cream/milk.
For a luxurious dessert in a glass: top with whipped cream and more ground cardamom
You don’t need a coffee maker to have great iced coffee in the summer. I’m now making cold brew coffee and keeping it in my fridge. This is a simple cold brew recipe via Parachute Coffee