The Best Way To Make Iced Tea Is Also the Easiest

I’m sure there’s science to back up the claim that drinking hot liquids in hot weather can cool you down, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be taking this advice. Right now it’s summer, we’re in the middle of a heat wave, and all I want to drink is a large amount of something delicately flavoured, not loaded with sugar, and extremely cold. I want my kids to like it, too. I don’t want to spend more than five minutes making it, and I want it available in my fridge at all times, for when I’m working from home or if someone pops over.

Cold-brewed tea checks off all of those boxes, and it couldn’t be simpler to make. 

What is cold-brew tea?

Unlike iced tea, which involves hot brewing tea and chilling it down, cold-brew tea involves a steep in the fridge, where the flavour is extracted over a period of 12 to 24 hours. This amount of time might sound off-putting, but in practice this can be something as simple as putting a few tea bags into a mason jar of cold water, popping it in the fridge in the evening, and waking up to a fresh brew the next morning.

Just because it’s that easy doesn’t mean it’s sub-par: cold steeping is generally considered among tea professionals as preferable to hot brewing for iced tea. For one, the flavour doesn’t get diluted by ice. For another, the flavour of cold-brew tea is generally smoother for the same reason cold-brew coffee is: skipping the hot water means fewer bitter compounds are extracted from the tea leaves. 

Finally, cold steeping uses less actual tea overall. “The ratios are different because with hot infusion, we pour it over ice,” says François Marchand, co-owner of Camellia Sinensis, a specialty tea purveyor based in Montreal. “We therefore need a more concentrated [hot-brewed] since it will be slightly diluted by the melting ice.”

What kind of tea can I use?

If you can brew it with hot water, you can cold steep it, too. This is as true for loose-leaf tea—white, black, green—as it is for herbal ones. My personal favourites for cold steeping are sencha green tea (it’s super clean and crisp) and rooibos (I don’t like its natural sweetness when hot, but when cold it’s delicious). Brew what you love!  

How do I make it?

There are a few popular methods, from steeping at room temperature to steeping in the fridge, or even a Japanese technique called kouridashi, which involves scattering high-quality tea leaves over a cup of ice; once fully melted, the tea has been extracted and is ready to strain and drink.

Here’s what I’ve been doing:

• For bagged tea I’ll hang 3-4 tea bags in a 1-L mason jar, with the paper tags sticking out. I’ll fill it with cold water, screw the cap on to keep the tags in place, and leave it in the fridge for 12 hours. The desired strength determines the number of tea bags I use. 
• For loose-leaf tea: I’ll put 4 tsp of tea in a 1-L mason jar (that’s 1 tsp per 250 mL) and top it with water. Once steeped for 12 hours, I’ll strain out the tea.
• For tea with fruit: If I want to add a secondary flavour with fresh fruit, I’ll use about a ½-cup of berries, roughly chopped mango, cubed cucumber or diced peach—basically anything with soft flesh. Crisp things like apples and pears take longer to extract. 

How do I sweeten it?

“We recommend using very little sweetener (½ tsp per 250 mL) to preserve the tea’s flavour as much as possible,” says Marchand. I agree—it’s delicious as is. If you’ve got a sweet tooth, though, a liquid sweetener such as agave or simple syrup will be easier to incorporate than granulated sugar or honey, and it should be added while making the tea, not after it’s been steeped.

Don’t want to deal with straining loose-leaf tea? A tea ball or insertable strainer works great. Camellia Sinensis makes a 1 L pitcher with a removable strainer that can brew cold or hot tea leaves, and doesn’t take up a lot of fridge space. It’s also a snap to clean.

Camellia Sinensis Infusion Pitcher, $35