*affiliate links used within this cold-brew iced tea post which means I make a small commission should you purchase using one of my links.
I’ve been on a quest to make a refreshing Paleo friendly cold-brewed iced tea. This means a tea sweetened without any refined sugar. Turns out it wasn’t hard to do at all and I’m so happy that I have a delicious drink to enjoy this summer. I bought a Takeya iced tea maker last year at Chapters Indigo here in Canada and then promptly forgot about it because I was so addicted to my homemade Skinny Frappuccino recipe at the time.
Now that I can’t drink coffee frappuccinos anymore (but you still might want to check out the recipe –> Homemade Skinny Coffee Frappuccino) I needed an alternative cool drink to enjoy. I pulled out my forgotten iced tea maker to try out. All you have to do is add 8-10 tea bags into the infuser, add cold water and put it into the fridge overnight (or longer) to “steep”. It really is just that easy.
My problem was how to sweeten the tea with honey as that is the only sweetener I can really have right now and as you know honey doesn’t dissolve in cold water very well. I solved that by making a honey syrup on the stove top. I simply added 1/2 cup honey to 1/2 water in a saucepan on the stove and heated just enough to let the honey dissolve. I store the mixture ready to go in the fridge in a small jar.
*I’ve noticed now on the Amazon website that the Takeya Tea Makers have gotten a bit of an upgrade since I purchased mine and now they have flash chill technology which means you can use hot water and you don’t have to let it sit overnight. That’s pretty cool.
Once the tea has sat overnight, remove tea bags. Pour tea into a glass full of ice, add the desired amount of honey syrup to sweeten, add some freshly squeezed lemon juice and enjoy! I like that each person can add as much or as little sweetener as they’d like. Everyone’s tastes are different. So delicious!!
You can use any kind of tea you fancy to make cold-brewed iced tea. My favorite so far is this Lemon and Lime tea from Basilur.
It’s really refreshing but I’m definitely going to experiment with other fruit teas (which I normally don’t enjoy hot) throughout the summer as well. Can’t wait!
Happy summer everyone!!
Marcia Francois says
I love my herbal teas iced too. I’ve started doing a bottle in the fridge at work which I have after lunch BUT I could do it before I leave at night and it’ll be nice and cold in the morning 🙂
Susanne says
Lemon/Lime sounds delicious. I like peppermint tea iced. Really refreshing and I don’t have to sweeten it at all!
monica says
Looks great! I learned about cold brew a few years ago – for those who don’t have a special container lie the one here, if you are using tea bags, you can really use any container at all!