Three iced green tea recipes for summer 2021

While black tea is the traditional go-to for most iced tea recipes, green tea has been growing in popularity for its versatility and ability to balance various subtle tastes.

The rule of thumb when steeping tea for iced tea is to use a ratio of 1 tea bag per cup of boiling water (there are exceptions!). This is because we’re making a tea concentrate to which we’ll be adding cold water, ice and other cold liquids later.

Also, these recipes call for tea bags. You’ll want to squeeze the tea bag when removing from the pot to extract as much tea as possible from the bag.

Green Tea Lemonade (quick method)

Ingredients

• 3 bags green tea
• 6 cups water
• 20 oz bottle of your favourite lemonade

Instructions

1. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil. 
2. Add green tea bags to the water. Turn off the heat and let this steep for 5 minutes.
3. Remove the tea bags, squeezing out any liquid. 
4. Add 3 more cups of cold water to the tea water, then pour into a pitcher. (Tip: replace half the amount of cold water with 2 cups of ice to chill your drink quicker.)
5. Pour about half of your well-shaken bottle of lemonade into the pitcher with the green tea.
6. Stir the mixture and enjoy!

Lemon-Lime Iced Green Tea

Ingredients

• 5 tea bags of jasmine green tea (or your favourite green tea if you can’t find the jasmine variety)
• 5 cups water
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup honey (or to taste)

Garnish

• 3 limes sliced
• 2 lemons sliced

Instructions 

1. In a medium saucepan, bring 2 cups of water to boil
2. Add 5 green tea bags into the hot water
3. Steep for 3 minutes or according to package instructions
4. Once the tea is steeped, you can use a large spoon to gently press the tea bags against the inside of the pot to extract as much of the tea as possible. Discard the tea bags.
5. While the tea is steeping, measure lime juice and lemon juice in a large pitcher
6. Add honey to the pot of hot stepped tea and stir until dissolved. 
7. Pour tea and honey mixture into the pitcher.
8. Add 3 cups of cold water to the pitcher. 
9. Stir until well blended. (Add more honey if desired.)
10. Place in refrigerator and chill until cold.

Serving

Serve chilled green tea with ice cubes, a lime slice and a lemon slice

Iced Green Tea with Mint & Honey

Ingredients

• 4 bags of green tea
• 4 cups of water
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 cups ice
• 2 cups cold water
• a handful of mint sprigs

Garnish

• lemon slices for serving
• and some of the mint you’ve already collected

Instructions

1. In a medium saucepan, bring 4 cups of water to a boil. 
2. Once the water reaches boiling, remove from heat, add the 4 tea bags and 2 mint sprigs. Cover and let steep 10 minutes.
3. Remove and discard the mint and tea bags, pressing the bags to extract as much tea as possible. 
4. While the steeped tea is still hot, stir in honey until dissolved.
5. In a large pitcher, add 2 cups ice, 2 cups cold water, then pour in the green tea mixture. 
6. Stir well to combine. 
7. Place in refrigerator and chill until cold.

NOTE: If you want a bigger flavour, cut back on the amount of cold water.

Serving

Serve over ice, with a lemon slice and mint sprig.

Read also: Three iced tea recipes to dazzle the taste buds