One of this week’s TWO Teas of the Week. I decided to make a pitcher of iced tea of this – because it’s that time of year again. I’m of the opinion that the cool weather never lasts long enough. I know that the warm weather definitely has it’s fans, but I’d take a chilly autumn day over the hot, humid days of summer anytime. Fortunately, we haven’t had anything too unbearable yet. We’ve had a few really hot days – uncomfortably hot – but they’ve been followed up with a day of rain which have cooled things down a bit. But then again, June has only just begun and I expect that as we go through July and August, we’ll have that aforementioned unbearable weather.
The solution is to have plenty of iced tea in the fridge – ready to pour. I do drink some hot tea during those very hot days of summer, but the hot tea drinking is limited severely compared to what I drink in the cooler days of autumn, winter and even those early days of spring. At this point in the year, I’m usually consuming at least one half gallon of iced tea each day and at least one – sometimes more – cups of hot tea per day. Normally, I’m drinking anywhere from 6 to sometimes 10 cups of hot tea with very little iced tea consumption.
Speaking of iced tea, the other day I went to Wendy’s and tried their tropical fruit green tea which I found to be more sugar than I liked. The flavors went sort of like this: sugar and fruit – in that order. Very little, if any, green tea flavor to speak of with that. It was still tasty from a fruit flavor perspective, I suppose, but it illustrated for me why I prefer to brew my own iced tea – I really don’t like my teas too sweet – and what sweetness I do experience from my own iced tea – I like to be there from the fruit, not from added sugar.
The two teas that I made for this week are both incredible chilled. I enjoy them a lot as hot teas too, but I think I actually prefer them iced as the fruit flavors really shine as a cold drink. I especially taste the raspberry and lime with the chill – and I like how the marshmallow mellows the sour aspects of the lime and raspberry while not eliminating the tart zing.
Interestingly enough, I can really taste the dragon well tea with the iced tea. Usually with these kinds of blends, I find that some of the tea flavor is obscured or at least altered when the tea cools (it’s the nature of the drink, I suppose) so I found it interesting that with the chill, the soft, buttery Sencha retreated a bit to allow the toasty corn and nut flavor of the dragon well to come through more – and this is something I had not noticed as much when I consumed it as a hot beverage. I still tasted some of the distinct notes of dragon well – sweet with a taste that reminded me of lightly buttered roasted corn – but I tasted more sencha than dragon well as a hot drink – but now as an iced tea – I definitely get the dragon well more distinctly.
I find it interesting, anyway. I enjoy this either way it’s brewed, but I definitely prefer it iced.