When the heat hits you feel the need to cool off inside and out. Cold teas and infusions are a very good alternative for those who do not want to drink only water and for those who use soft drinks full of sugar, sweeteners and artificial flavorings.

We present two very simple recipes for a cold tea for adults and a cool infusion for children. Don’t miss out on these hot days.

ice tea: Classic Lemon Iced Tea Recipe

Ingredients (for 1.5 l of tea):

• 3 bags or 8 grams of loose black tea (can be regular tea or de-infused tea)
• 1 lemon
• Approximately 500 ml ice cubes
• stevia powder
• boiling water
• 500 ml cold water

Elaboration

1. Make a tea concentrate. To do this, put three tea bags or loose tea (in the filter or mesh) in a cup or glass.
2. Add the sweetener of your choice. How much you use depends on how sweet you want the iced tea to be later. Put a little less at first, you can always sweeten more later.
3. Pour boiling water carefully until the cup is full.
4. Let it sit for between 3 and 5 minutes until it acquires a very intense color.
5. While you let the tea steep, you can put the ice cubes in a stable container, for example, a pot. Don’t skimp on the ice, because the tea has to cool down suddenly. Otherwise it will be bitter.
6. After the infusion time has elapsed, pour the tea over the ice cubes and stir the tea mixture and ice well.
7. Add the juice of one lemon, stir again and add half a liter of very cold water. Your iced tea will be ready and you can put it in a glass jug to serve it.

Remember that Iced tea is particularly good if you garnish it with half a slice of lemon ecological.

«ice tea» without theine for children

Since black tea and green tea contain caffeine, they are not suitable for children. Instead, You can make an iced infusion with fruit and mint infusion. A final touch of juice can refine the infusion.

Elaboration:

1. For children’s iced tea, you must first prepare a tea concentrate. Take four bags of mint for this. If your little one likes the fruity flavor more, you can take two sachets of mint infusion and two sachets of fruit infusion. Attention, due to the menthol contained in mint tea, you should not use it for children under three years of age; With the little ones, use only fruit infusions.
2. In principle, sweeten the infusion as little as possible, especially if it is intended for children. The more fruit infusion you include, the less sweetener you will need.
3. Next, pour the mint concentrate over the ice cubes to chill the infusion instantly.
4. The juice of a lemon should also not be missing at this point, then stir the entire mixture well.
5. Add approximately half a liter of water. You can refine the frozen infusion with a pinch of apple juice or grape must.

Tip: if the infusion is for children over 3 years old, but they do not like a very intense mint infusion, You can add a handful of mint to the initial fruit infusion concentrate and let it rest for three minutes.

Why should you make iced tea yourself?

Classic iced tea is made with black tea and a sweetener. Unfortunately, Many black teas contain harmful substances or are not traded fairly. Workers are not paid adequately and forests are cleared for tea cultivation.

For your homemade iced tea, We recommend that you always use fair trade tea, organic or biodynamic tea.

The second sticking point with iced tea is the sweetener used. Ready-to-drink iced teas from the supermarket are sweetened with conventional sugar or sweeteners suspected of being harmful to health, such as aspartame and acesulfame. If you make it yourself, you can sweeten it with stevia powder, coconut sugar, honey, or maple syrup.

The flavor changes depending on the sweetener. Stevia and coconut sugar are best suited for classic iced tea, and honey from regional beekeepers or maple syrup, which is usually imported from Canada, are also suitable for children’s fruity infusion.

Of course, the healthiest thing is to avoid sugar. While cold, unsweetened black tea is unlikely to appeal to most people, you should try fruity infusions without it – you’ll see how many don’t need it.