On a hot summers day cool off with a glass of homemade peach iced team made with fresh peaches. Get the recipe below.
Iced tea
The British love their tea. It's a fact. We drink it all year round even when the temperatures soar during summer. I've never understood this despite the fact that many people have told me that hot tea is "refreshing" in the summer months.
Of course in hot countries around the world they do something quite sensible: they drink iced tea. I don't know why it's not as popular in the UK.
As you might expect, iced tea is a form of cold tea that is chilled either by ice or by placing it in a fridge to keep it cool. It can be flavoured with all sorts of fruit but one of the most classic variations is peach iced tea.
It's incredibly easy to make as you just stir together your fruit syrup with black tea. It's entirely customisable as you can adjust the level of sweetness in the syrup and adjust the length of time you steep the tea. More on that below.
Summer peaches
It's unsurprising that peaches are a popular fruit to include in iced tea. The sweet, peach flavoured syrup balanced perfectly with the slightly bitter black tea. You can use any black tea you wish - there are even tea bags sold as iced tea bags which are usually filled with orange pekoe tea.
What I love about this recipe is that it doesn't rely on industrially made peach syrups. Instead fresh peaches are stewed and turned into a sweet syrup by extracting all of their juices and cooking this with a little sugar. This is then combined with the black tea to make the final drink.
I like my iced tea to taste more like peach than it does of tea but you can adjust the flavour by steeping your tea to your own preference. Unlike some, I also don't like my iced tea too sweet so I am careful with how much sugar I add, adding it slowly. I recommend you taste as you go so you get it to your preferred level of sweetness.
The recipe
Fresh Peach Iced Tea
Ingredients
- 3 peaches 2 diced, one cut into wedges
- 100 g granulated sugar
- 1-2 black tea bags
- 4 sprigs mint
Instructions
- Add the diced peaches to a pan along with 125 ml of water and place over a low-medium heat.
- Stew the peaches for 10 minutes or until soft.
- While the juice cooks, prepare your tea in a heatproof jug and leave to cool.
- Once soft take off of the heat and crush with a potato masher.
- Sieve the juice into a jug then, the press the remaining pulp against the sieve to remove as much juice as possible.
- Pour the juice back into the saucepan and add the sugar.
- Place back on a medium heat and slowly bring to the boil.
- Cook for 5 minutes or until the juice has become syrupy.
- Once the syrup is ready, divide across 4 glasses, add ice cubes and pour over the cold tea.
- Serve with a sprig of mint.
Nutrition
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