Tea-ish things
Aug. 27th, 2009 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wombat1138Nasty hot weather again lately (upper 90s today) -> lots of cold tea-based beverages.
Warning for delicate palates-- I rather like the maligned taste of "stewed" tea because the frequent alternative is anemic "tea" that's only been steeped long enough to give the hot water some color without any flavor. When making a single cup of tea with a teabag, I leave it in until the cup is dry; I used to finish by putting the teabag into my mouth to slurp out any residual tea, with the tag string hanging out like the tail of a little mousie.
Obviously these recipes could be made with shorter steep times, though.
Current array in fridge--
Cran-raspberry iced tea: put four bags of standard-issue black tea into the default ~3-cup teapot, fill teapot with hot water, and leave until tepid-to-cold. Pour tea into 2-quart pitcher with a can of frozen cran-raspberry concentrate. Stir to dissolve, stick pitcher into the fridge (do not drink yet), refill the teapot with hot water to extract more tea, and let that cool down to go into the pitcher too. Resteep again or add plain water to fill pitcher up to a full two quarts. Make sure you stir it so the higher-density sweetened layer doesn't stay relatively unmixed on the bottom. IIRC cran-raspberry concentrate cans are indicated for 48 oz. total volume, so obviously the sweetness factor is lowered by diluting it up to 64 oz.
Pomegranate green tea: same tea-brewing procedure with four bags of green tea; pour into 2-qt pitcher, stick into fridge, and re-steep bags. The total volume of two teapots is somewhat less than two quarts; pour in pomegranate juice to bring up to full volume. Taste-check and add some sugar and lemon juice if desired.
Liquid chai concentrate: put ~1/2 cup of looseleaf black tea (I use pu-erh) into a pot with ~2 quarts cold water. Assemble various whole spices in a mortar and lightly whack at them with the pestle until broken up but not pulverized. Spice identities and quantities are somewhat random, but my standbys are 1-2 cinnamon sticks, ~5-8 pods of black cardamom, 2-3 star anises, and about a teaspoon each of other stuff like allspice, cloves, fennel seeds, and black peppercorns. A dash of red pepper flakes can also be fun. This time I skipped the few usual few slices of fresh ginger, and also decided to dump in sugar (~1/2c?) at this stage instead of at the end. Add the spices into the water, cover the pot, and bring to a boil. Simmer for at least a few minutes but up to a half-hour or so before turning the heat back off. (If you leave it simmering for too long, like in a crockpot overnight, the essential oils seem to evaporate off so your kitchen smells great but the chai doesn't taste like anything anymore.) Let the stuff cool for a while as the spice dregs settle down to the bottom, then ladle the liquid through a strainer into a pitcher. To consume, put ice cubes into a glass, fill it most of the way with milk, add some chai concentrate, and stir. It really is pretty concentrated, and should be diluted at least 1:1 with milk and probably more. (Or if you don't do milk, just pour the concentrate into ice water. Or hot water, depending on the weather.)
(Honey-ginseng green tea: usually in the fridge, but I've temporarily swapped out its niche for the pomegranate stuff. Started out as a clone of the Arizona-brand flavor, but is a bit more concentrated. Same tea-brewing process w/ four bags (or teaspoons, if loose) of green tea; while tea is resteeping, use the first steep to dissolve ~1/2 cup sugar and ~2T honey. Add ~3T lemon juice and a vial of ginseng extract (I bought a box of 20 vials from GNC last year for maybe $18? each one is 10cc). Dilute up to 2 quarts total w/ resteeped tea and extra water before consuming.)
The pomegranate stuff came about as a wild save from a box of bagged green tea with "added natural flavors" (lemongrass? weird floral stuff?) that really didn't work with the honey-ginseng recipe. After drinking two cups or so from the 2-quart pitcher, I looked at the unopened bottle of pomegranate juice that's been languishing in the fridge, and decided to see if that would do the trick. Worked out pretty well, though that first batch was definitely too sweet. I'm going to keep making the pomegranate recipe until the lemongrass tea is gone, because while it's tasty in this context, I can't stand it otherwise and want to get rid of it.
One of these days I'm planning to experiment with "Kashmiri chai" recipes involving green tea, almonds, and saffron, but not until the weather cools back down. For some reason we have ~5 bottles of saffron in our pantry and I don't know why; we've generally only used it when making risotto once in a while, and there's been no risotto since the wombat-consort went on a carb embargo last year.
Warning for delicate palates-- I rather like the maligned taste of "stewed" tea because the frequent alternative is anemic "tea" that's only been steeped long enough to give the hot water some color without any flavor. When making a single cup of tea with a teabag, I leave it in until the cup is dry; I used to finish by putting the teabag into my mouth to slurp out any residual tea, with the tag string hanging out like the tail of a little mousie.
Obviously these recipes could be made with shorter steep times, though.
Current array in fridge--
Cran-raspberry iced tea: put four bags of standard-issue black tea into the default ~3-cup teapot, fill teapot with hot water, and leave until tepid-to-cold. Pour tea into 2-quart pitcher with a can of frozen cran-raspberry concentrate. Stir to dissolve, stick pitcher into the fridge (do not drink yet), refill the teapot with hot water to extract more tea, and let that cool down to go into the pitcher too. Resteep again or add plain water to fill pitcher up to a full two quarts. Make sure you stir it so the higher-density sweetened layer doesn't stay relatively unmixed on the bottom. IIRC cran-raspberry concentrate cans are indicated for 48 oz. total volume, so obviously the sweetness factor is lowered by diluting it up to 64 oz.
Pomegranate green tea: same tea-brewing procedure with four bags of green tea; pour into 2-qt pitcher, stick into fridge, and re-steep bags. The total volume of two teapots is somewhat less than two quarts; pour in pomegranate juice to bring up to full volume. Taste-check and add some sugar and lemon juice if desired.
Liquid chai concentrate: put ~1/2 cup of looseleaf black tea (I use pu-erh) into a pot with ~2 quarts cold water. Assemble various whole spices in a mortar and lightly whack at them with the pestle until broken up but not pulverized. Spice identities and quantities are somewhat random, but my standbys are 1-2 cinnamon sticks, ~5-8 pods of black cardamom, 2-3 star anises, and about a teaspoon each of other stuff like allspice, cloves, fennel seeds, and black peppercorns. A dash of red pepper flakes can also be fun. This time I skipped the few usual few slices of fresh ginger, and also decided to dump in sugar (~1/2c?) at this stage instead of at the end. Add the spices into the water, cover the pot, and bring to a boil. Simmer for at least a few minutes but up to a half-hour or so before turning the heat back off. (If you leave it simmering for too long, like in a crockpot overnight, the essential oils seem to evaporate off so your kitchen smells great but the chai doesn't taste like anything anymore.) Let the stuff cool for a while as the spice dregs settle down to the bottom, then ladle the liquid through a strainer into a pitcher. To consume, put ice cubes into a glass, fill it most of the way with milk, add some chai concentrate, and stir. It really is pretty concentrated, and should be diluted at least 1:1 with milk and probably more. (Or if you don't do milk, just pour the concentrate into ice water. Or hot water, depending on the weather.)
(Honey-ginseng green tea: usually in the fridge, but I've temporarily swapped out its niche for the pomegranate stuff. Started out as a clone of the Arizona-brand flavor, but is a bit more concentrated. Same tea-brewing process w/ four bags (or teaspoons, if loose) of green tea; while tea is resteeping, use the first steep to dissolve ~1/2 cup sugar and ~2T honey. Add ~3T lemon juice and a vial of ginseng extract (I bought a box of 20 vials from GNC last year for maybe $18? each one is 10cc). Dilute up to 2 quarts total w/ resteeped tea and extra water before consuming.)
The pomegranate stuff came about as a wild save from a box of bagged green tea with "added natural flavors" (lemongrass? weird floral stuff?) that really didn't work with the honey-ginseng recipe. After drinking two cups or so from the 2-quart pitcher, I looked at the unopened bottle of pomegranate juice that's been languishing in the fridge, and decided to see if that would do the trick. Worked out pretty well, though that first batch was definitely too sweet. I'm going to keep making the pomegranate recipe until the lemongrass tea is gone, because while it's tasty in this context, I can't stand it otherwise and want to get rid of it.
One of these days I'm planning to experiment with "Kashmiri chai" recipes involving green tea, almonds, and saffron, but not until the weather cools back down. For some reason we have ~5 bottles of saffron in our pantry and I don't know why; we've generally only used it when making risotto once in a while, and there's been no risotto since the wombat-consort went on a carb embargo last year.