Ain't. Gonna. Happen.
Now that we've gotten that straightened out, this is the iced tea I make. If you're looking for traditional Southern house wine (sweet tea,) this will not satisfy your craving. I haven't found a way to make Southern sweet tea that doesn't require white table sugar and Lipton tea bags! Yes, I love it too. But I can't drink it every day.
So this is iced tea, not a sweet tea substitute
Ingredients
- 3 green tea bags (I like Bigelow green tea with lemon)
- 1/4 cup Agave (I tried honey, family prefers Agave.)
- Fresh fruit to suit your palate
Method
- Bring water to boil in tea kettle
- Add 3/4 cups of the boiling water to the 1/4 cup Agave, set aside
- Clean & slice fruit and put it in your pitcher (I like apple, orange and lemon)
- Pour remainder of hot water over fruit, pour in Agave/water mixture
- Put in your tea bags and stir gently.
- Cover and allow to steep to desired strength
- Uncover, remove fruit & tea bags with slotted spoon
- Top off pitcher with cold water & refrigerate
Tips
- For sweeter tea, add only sweet fruit for the steeping step and use lemon by the glass
- For more concentrated flavor, steep over night.
- If you steep in lemon or lime overnight, you'll have more of an Arnold Palmer (lemonade/tea) flavor.
- Be careful adding and removing tea bags so you don't puncture them and get loose leaves in your tea!
- You can skip the step of mixing the hot water with the Agave but the Agave is thick and I think it mixes better this way.
- If you like flavored teas, add whatever fruit you usually like. I bet peach would be delicious!
- If you just can't manage with your white sugar or sweeteners, try this and you might find you can reduce the white sugar/artificial sweetener you need because of the fruit.
- CAUTION! I mentioned this isn't traditional sweet tea? It also isn't zero calorie tea. Agave has a much lower glycemic index than refined sugar and you need much less to flavor more tea. Still, it's not a "free" beverage.
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