Ice tea can be made in five minutes at home or at a picnic
When you want an ice tea made very quickly, you need a tea of premium quality. Moreover, when you are preparing it out of home, it should be packed in pyramid bags. You can take the bags with you for a trip to a spring well or a picnic. Kabusé HOT&COLD is a mixture of Japanese green and roasted leaf tea of organic quality. One three-gram bag is infused in half a litre of cold water for five minutes only and the taste of the resulting drink is strong and distinctively grassy and fresh. You can use it to prepare Japanese lemonade:
“Kabusé fruit” Japanese lemonade
Let the Kabusé HOT&COLD pyramid bag infuse for five minutes in half a litre of cold water. Meanwhile, dip the edges of two high glasses in freshly squeezed lemon juice and sugar to create a crust. Fill the glasses with ice cubes and pour in the Kabusé tea and the rest of the lemon juice. You may also experiment with other citrus fruits – grapefruits or oranges.
Matcha lemonade of two colours
Another quick lemonade can be prepared from another Japanese tea – matcha powder tea. Stir one gram with 0.5 dl of hot water. Fill half of the glass with ice and pour in 1dl of freshly squeezed lemon, orange or grapefruit juice. You may add 1 dl of another fruit juice, for example with mango or pineapple flavour. Finally, add slowly the matcha tea into the glass to make a second colour layer.
TIP
As all green teas, Kabusé HOT&COLD and Matcha efficiently cool down the organism during hot days. Furthermore, they speed up metabolism. Both teas are from tea bushes shaded with nets (called kabusé in Japanese), which let only half of the sun rays through. Shaded tea produces more active substances beneficial to health and a great aroma.
Prepare a strong macerate overnight in the fridge.
If you have more time to prepare a home-made iced tea or lemonade, we recommend using the tea leaves to prepare so-called macerate, i.e. steep the leaves in the water for several hours or overnight. In cold water, the tea leaves unfold at a much slower pace, which can bring out the taste of a quality tea in the macerate more noticeably than in a hot brew. The simulative effect of the macerate is also much stronger. We recommend trying a fresh Darjeeling tea which was manually picked during the first harvests this spring. You can use it to prepare so-called tea whiskey:
“Whiskey from Darjeeling” lemonade
Let 15 g of Darjeeling Risheehat tea from the 2013 first flush steep overnight in one litre of cold water to produce the tea macerate. Pour 1 dl of iced tea into a whiskey glass full of ice. You may sweeten the lemonade with agave or maple syrup by mixing the macerate with the syrup in a shaker and then pouring it into the glass full of ice.
Fruit experiments
Fresh citrus juices (orange, tangerine, lemon, grapefruit) can be added to the Darjeeling iced tea, simply mix the macerate with juices in a shaker. While preparing the home-made lemonade in a larger pitcher, you may also cut and add small pieces of fruits.
TIP for a novelty: ICE TEA MAKER HARIO
Those who fall in love with tea macerates may purchase special glass Ice Tea Maker Hario. This elegant teapot consists of two glass parts stacked one over the other. First put 10-15 g of tea into the upper part and fill in with ice cubes. As the ice is thawing, water pours through the tea and iced tea drips through fine holes at the bottom of the upper part to the pot below. It takes several hours, but the tea has a very stimulating effect and very distinct taste.
