The pleasure of drinking gourmet iced tea is improved when you match the right water temperature and the perfect length of steeping time with the best tea. For ordinary supermarket brands of teabag tea or perhaps loose leaf tea, hot to nearly boiling will work good for tea powerful enough for iced tea. Simply use two bags or 2 teaspoons of tea for eight ounces of water, let it steep three to five minutes, then decant the leaves (or eliminate the teabags.) Allow the tea to cool before refrigerating, covered, until ready to use.
Do This!
Make additional tea every time you make iced tea and pour the additional amount in ice cube trays. This is extremely beneficial in frightening the tea without diluting it as iced water cubes can perform. Fruit juices like orange or lemon are yummy in iced teas. If you wish to pretty up the cubes, set one or two fresh berries such as raspberries, blackberries, blueberries or a de-stemmed strawberry in each cube. Slices of stone fruit such as nectarines or peaches are great, too. Mint leaves are beautiful to grow the cubes or to garnish a tall glass of your favorite iced tea.
For gourmet grade teas, which provide infinitely more intricate taste and more variety, the very same measures are taken but with two major changes. Temperature has to be adjusted to the sort of tea, and steeping time differs for each type: whites, greens, oolongs, blacks, or herbals.
Whites and greens
They are extremely delicate in flavor and overly hot water may literally scorch them making them bitter. Use under boiling water for greens and whites, about 180 to 190°F and simmer around three minutes.
Oolongs can withstand hotter water, from 190 to 195°F for three minutes for light, greenish oolongs and around seven minutes to get darker oolongs.
Black teas can withstand temperatures from 205 to 212°F for three to five minutes.
Herbals can easily be infused with boiling water, 212°F for three to five minutes with no bitterness.
Gourmet Tea
For gourmet teas temperature is critical, particularly for high quality, outstanding gourmet teas. A few degrees of too hot a temperature or a minute too long in stepping time will leave the tea bitter. Conversely, under steeping can make the tea tastes weak and flavorless. Too low a temperature isn’t a issue, but more steeping times elicit both odor and taste.
To take the guesswork from steeping your tea, consider an automated system that does all the thinking for you. You can literally set the temperature and time by indicating the sort of tea (green, white, oolong, herbal or black ) and indicate that the tea strength. The machine will steep your tea according to your instructions; need to see a clock. No thinking, just pleasurable tea drinking.
Summary
The pleasure of drinking gourmet iced tea is improved when you meet the appropriate water temperature and proper steeping time with the ideal tea. Whites and greens need under boiling water, from 180 to 190°F; oolongs need hotter water, from 190 to 195°F; blacks want from 205 to 212°F, and herbals may be infused with boiling water, 212°F To take the guesswork out of determining the perfect water temperature and steeping time, consider an automated system which does all the thinking for you and, on top of that, causes a fantastic pot of tea served warm or chilled to get iced tea pleasure.
