Iced Tea

June is National Iced Tea Month.

According to the Tea Association's Tea Fact Sheet, approximately 85% of tea consumed in America is iced. In Japan, iced tea is usually unsweetened green tea and oolong. Black tea is also popular in other Asian countries. Of course, Thai iced tea is made from black tea.

Cold alcoholic tea punches were popular throughout the 19th century. According to What's Cooking America's History of Iced Tea and Sweet Tea:

The 1839 cookbook, The Kentucky Housewife, by Mrs. Lettice Bryanon, was typical of the American tea punch recipes:

Tea Punch - Make a pint and a half of very strong tea in the usual manner; strain it, and pour it boiling (hot) on one pound and a quarter of loaf sugar. (That's 2 1/2 cups white sugar) Add half a pint of rich sweet cream, and then stir in gradually a bottle of claret or of champaign (sic). You may heat it to the boiling point, and serve it so, or you may send it round entirely cold, in glass cups.

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The oldest known recipe for iced tea appears to be in the 1876 Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping

Prepare tea in the morning, making it stronger and sweeter than usual; strain and pour into a clean stone jug or glass bottle, and set aside in the ice-chest until ready to use. Drink from goblets without cream. Serve ice broken in small pieces on a platter nicely garnished with well-washed grape leaves. Iced tea may be prepared from either green or black alone, but it is considered an improvement to mix the two.

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If it bothers you to let hot tea sit and lose its potency, phenols, and antioxidants, you might want to try cold brewing. Use about 50-100% more than you use when hot brewing, and leave it sitting in the refrigerator for at least 4-6 hours.

For those who just recipes, check out Iced tea: 50 recipes for refreshing tisanes, infusions, coolers, and spiked teas on google books.

There seems to be a conspiracy to hide how National Iced Tea Month got started. I can only guess it's a gorilla marketing tactic by The Tea Association of the USA or some tea companies to sell more iced tea.

Gorilla marketing tactic indeed!

Where I'm from and how I was raised iced tea was made from the tea bags used at breakfast put in a bottle of water and placed in the fridge. No sugar, no lemon. These days Canadian Iced tea is sweetened but not as much as my American relatives expect. (I expect that there is variation across the US most of my US relatives are in Michigan, North Carolina, and Virginia, and Maryland)

I like the idea of Sun tea. . . . tea in water left in the hot sun . . .

Mike