Try Three Iced Tea Innovations for Summer-Long Taste Sensations
Happy June! We think it’s one of the finest months of the year, at least here in the Front Range of Colorado. Much of June is flip-flops and t-shirts weather, but the mornings remain cool and afternoon temperatures don’t normally compel us to turn on the air conditioning. Fields radiate variations on a theme of emerald, flowers broadcast bold color everywhere and al fresco dining returns in force.
It’s also National Iced Tea Month—and you know this captivates all of us at Team Ku Cha! People in Asia drank cool tea long before it became a worldwide thing. But the practice never turned into tea-preparation juggernaut until after tea reached the United States, and people began purposefully brewing tea destined for tall glasses filled with ice.
The History of Iced Tea in North America
Evidence for the first iced tea in America appears in a publication called Housekeeping in Old Virginia, where in 1879 a woman named Marion Cabell Tyree published a recipe for iced tea made from green tea—brewed, poured over ice, and punched up with sugar.
Just five years later, in 1884, a Mrs. D.A. (Mary) Lincoln, the head of the Boston Cooking School, printed a recipe familiar to all of us today. She brewed black tea (instead of green), and poured it over ice, with lemon and two sugar cubes. Voila—nearly 150 years later, millions of us in the United States alone drink this beverage every year.
While we adore the classic—assuming that fine black tea is used, rather than tea from poor-quality mass-market tea bags—we also experiment every year with many different iced teas. After all, we carry more than 225 teas at Ku Cha, and all of them hold potential as successful iced tea candidates.
This summer, why not advance your iced tea game? We offer here a trio of novel preparations that we think will quickly become part of your iced tea repertoire. All of the preparations come courtesy of members of our superb staff, who are constantly conjuring fresh innovations with our many teas.
But no need to just stick with these three. The possibilities are nearly endless. You can brew single teas and chill them for all-summer sipping. You can mix different teas. And there’s also other ingredients you can bring to the tea party, from sweeteners to juice, plant-based milks and for adult-style iced tea, even things like Prosecco.
Enjoy your summer of iced tea!
Iced Tea Ideas: Pink Flamingo, with Paradise Peach and Pink Pomegranate
After years of iced tea explorations, we find that brews combining fruit and floral flavors often become favorites. And this employee-crafted creation covers a lot of ground on both fronts. It rocks.
Our popular Paradise Peach brings hibiscus, rose hip, apple and orange to the elixir. Always popular Pink Pomegranate offers pomegranate, pineapple, apple, dragon fruit, hibiscus and a touch of yogurt crunch, which softens the brew a touch. Together, the blends yield a flavor-flooded brew that produces an especially refreshing and delicious iced tea.
Our team likes to use equal parts Paradise Peach and Pink Pomegranate, brew it strong, and pour over ice.
Iced Tea Ideas: Matcha Mimosa
This stands out as the most novel or our team’s iced tea innovations. Matcha Mimosa is more like a cocktail, and best made one at a time rather than batched and held in a pitcher in the fridge. And it’s sublime.
For this approach, we don’t even brew tea. Instead, we first mix 2 ounces of orange juice with 6 ounces of tonic water. Then we whisk half a teaspoon of our exceptional matcha with about a quarter-cup of water until it’s well blended. And then we top the blend of orange juice and tonic water with the bright green whisked matcha.
The drink is visually arresting, for sure. More importantly, it’s exquisite. In addition, it works wonderfully as a cocktail base. Per part of the drink’s name—mimosa—this drink thrills with the addition of a few ounces of Prosecco, Cava or any sparkling wine.
Cheers!
Iced Tea Ideas: Horchata, with Monkey Bread and Firefly Chai
If you’ve ever tasted the Mexican drink horchata, chances are you recall it with fond memories—it could be the refreshing cold drink has become a standard beverage at home. Either way, this recipe ramps up traditional horchata with the addition of two teas that are electric with spices and flavor oomph.
Our Monkey Bread tea captures the essence of the classic American pastry monkey bread, with cinnamon and allspice added to the blend’s base of green puerh, oolong and black teas. The custom blend, a fairly new addition to Ku Cha House of Tea, quickly became extremely popular among our customers.
Monkey Bread alone yields a scrumptious iced tea, but after much experimentation we found that adding our Firefly Chai makes the beverage even more tantalizing. This spectacular chai rests on a foundation of black tea, and then incorporates ginger root, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, vanilla and nutmeg.
To make our rendition of horchata, mix equal parts of Monkey Bread and Firefly Chai, brew strong, and add oat milk (or another plant-based milk) and sugar.
This is jaw-droppingly fabulous horchata. If you make a big batch and keep it in a pitcher in the refrigerator, you’ll be opening that fridge door repeatedly across any summer day. And soon, you’ll be brewing a new round of horchata, Ku Cha-style.
