How to Make the Perfect Iced Tea

When the days are starting to warm up, there is no better way to enjoy the wonderful flavours of your favourite tea or tisane than with a delicious iced tea. Cool and refreshing, yet still packed with lovely, delicate flavours, iced teas make the perfect treat on those sunny days.

While you can opt for using tea bags when making an iced tea, we definitely recommend going for loose leaf tea instead – the full flavours and delightful aromas of a fresh tea leaf will truly be on display in your iced tea, and at Tea-Direct, we offer a fantastic selection of flavoured teas and tisanes that will bring your cooling iced teas to life.

How to Make the Perfect Iced Tea

Iced teas should be prepared with good quality tea, and ideally bottled or filtered water rather than tap water, resulting in a clean-tasting, flavoursome tea with no bitterness.

There are two popular ways to prepare iced tea:

• Steep tea leaves or tea bags in hot water, then allow this to cool to room temperature before chilling it in the refrigerator, or just adding ice. It's worth remembering that ice will dilute the tea, so a little more tea should be used if ice is to be added.
• Prepare a cold-brewed tea, whereby tea leaves are infused in cold water and placed in the refrigerator to chill. The suggested chilling times for green, herbal and fruit teas using this method are 3 to 8 hours, and 6 to 12 hours for black or oolong. With the cold-brew method, flavours are extracted slowly, allowing subtle tastes and fragrances to develop.

Lemon Verbena Herbal Tea
Fresh, sweet and full of zesty lemon flavour, this is made from the cut leaves of the Lemon Verbena herb from Morocco and offers lovely, grassy and herbaceous notes that can be enjoyed all through the day.

Earl Grey Citrus Tea
Made from a delightful blend of Earl Grey tea, with leaves scented with oil from the rind of the bergamot orange fruit, as well as lemon and orange teas, this brings together aromatic bergamot, delightful hints of orange, and clean lemon flavours for a light and highly satisfying iced tea.

Peppermint Herbal Tea
This refreshing and soothing tea is caffeine-free and guaranteed to give you a great kick-start first thing in the day. Made from dried peppermint leaves, this offers a great aroma and a distinct minty taste.

Sencha Japanese Cherry Tea
This delicious blend of sencha green tea, rose blossoms and cherry flavouring offers up distinct flavours of deep cherry for a tea that is slightly sweet, fruity and very refreshing, and that can be enjoyed all through the day.

Rooibos Orange and Eucalyptus Tea
Made from a combination of Australian eucalyptus leaves and oranges, this caffeine-free redbush tea offers up a wonderful menthol aroma, fruity notes of peach and orange, and fresh flavours of eucalyptus.

Berry Cocktail Fruit Tisane

A rich coloured tisane made from a vibrant blend of hibiscus, elderberries and currants, offering a fantastic aroma and sweet, fresh flavours - perfect for a summer iced tea!

Blood Orange Fruit Tisane
Spanish oranges help to create this wonderfully fruity tisane, which is made from a vibrant blend of orange peels, apple bits, hibiscus blossoms, rose hip petals and papaya bits.

Apple and Lemon Fruit Tisane
This traditional tisane blends sweet Kentish apples, juicy, citrusy lemons, hibiscus blossoms, rose hip peels and orange peels to create the perfect tea for a long summer afternoon.