Herbal Iced Tea Recipe | How to Make Herbal Iced Tea from Scratch | Summer Cool Drinks Ideas

Herbal Iced Tea #Recipe

Herbal Iced Tea is a thrist-quenching summer drink. With lemongrass, ginger and mint, this herbal iced tea is full of flavours. I have used sugar to sweeten it, but you can use honey or any other sugar free sweetness as well.

I have never been an iced tea person. I do order it some times at food joints, but it has never been one of my go-to cool drinks. But, after trying this recipe I am a convert. I wouldn't mind saying that this herbal iced tea has become one of my latest favorite chilled drinks to beat the heat this summer. 

Long ago, I had tried a fruit punch recipe that used tea decoction and it turned to be a super flop. Since, then I was wary of trying any drink recipe with tea decoction in it. But, when I chanced upon a herbal iced tea recipe in one of the cookbooks I own ( did I tell you I am a hoarder of cookbooks?) I decided to give it a try.

The recipe involved making a herbal decoction first - a combination of lemongrass, ginger and mint. The recipe did interest me; but I had an even better reason to try it. Sometimes back I had planted lemongrass and mint in my terrace garden and I was delighted at the idea of using my garden produce.

The best thing about this recipe is that you can prepare the herbal decoction in bulk and freeze them in ice trays and use them when needed. You can play around with the ratio of the herbs, depending on which herb flavor you want to be prominent.

Here is how you can prepare the herbal decoction for iced tea:

1/2 cup ginger, washed, peeled and grated.

1/2 cup lemongrass leaves, washed and chopped

1/4 cup mint leaves

1" cinnamon stick

Process:

1. Add all the listed ingredients in a saucepan and add 500 ml water. Bring it to a boil and then simmer it on medium heat for 15 to 20 mins.

2. Turn off the heat and cover the saucepan. Let it cool completely before straining. Strain and set aside the herb extract.

3. You can add another cup of water to the residue and simmer it for 15 mins. The decoction prepared the second time will be milder in flavor. You can combine both the extracts thus prepared or you can store them separately. If you do not need to use the entire decoction in one go, freeze them in iced cube tray. When frozen fill them in a zip-lock bag.

Herbal Iced Tea Recipe

Makes 2 tall glasses

Ingredients:

2 teabags 

100 ml boiling water

10-12 herbal ice cubes or about 60 ml of the herbal extract

3 tbsp simple syrup ( sugar syrup prepared by mixing and boiling equal quantity of sugar and water till the sugar is dissolved)

300 ml chilled water

Ice cubes, mint leaves and lemon slices to garnish (optional)

Process:

1. Add the tea bags in boiling water and let it steep for 10 mins. Take the tea bags out and set aside the tea decoction.

2. If you are using herbal ice cubes, add them to the warm tea decoction so that they melt faster. Else add the herbal concoction equally into two glasses. Pour prepared tea decoction. Add simple sugar syrup and top with chilled water. 
3. Add ice cubes, mint leaves and lemon slices as desired. Stir and serve chilled. 

Notes:

1. Add a squirt of lemon juice for Herbal Lemon Iced Tea.
2. You can add the herbal ice cubes to your regular lemonades for added flavor.

Check out some more summer drink ideas

Sweet Lime Soda,
Ginger Mint Lemonade,
Makhanya Lassi, 
Blueberry Lemonade 
Strawberry Lemonade

Thank you for stopping by. Cheers!