how to make iced tea that actually tastes good

Making iced tea sounds simple, but somehow most homemade versions end up tasting kind of sad. So after years of brewing my own iced tea at home, here are some of my favorite recipes that are super simple to make and always taste great. All of the teas in this video are freshly brewed, so I use hot water and tea bags, but if you are a tea lover like me, you know that cold brew also exists. So I want to show you how simple and easy it is to make a cold brew at home and exactly how I would make mine. I think a lot of the times we complicate cold brew, we're like how do we do it, what exactly do I use, how much of the stuff do I use, but in reality it's such a personal thing. The goal is to just actually like your cold brew and drink it and have fun with it. If you're using fresh fruit, obvio, lave la fruta, just make sure it's clean. This is one whole lemon in here, whole lime as well. This is a very citrus heavy recipe, so if you don't want this much citrus, you can use fresh pineapple, mango, strawberries, like fresh herbs, mint, basil, you do not have to do what I'm doing. When I'm making a cold brew, I like to figure out the base of the tea, which is what I want the tea to mostly taste like. Then if I want to add any other flavors or notes, that's when I use the second tea bag or the other flavor. So for example, with this recipe, I want it to mostly taste like pineapple ginger, so I'm going to be using two tea bags and then one tea bag of the mango tangerine turmeric. So overall, I feel like cold brewing and cold brew iced tea is much more forgiving than freshly brewed iced tea in terms of bitterness and flavor. The AC's kicking on, so please just bear with me and the noise. We're just gonna put a lid on this. I actually got these lids, they're so cute, off of Amazon like a year ago and I never use them because all of my mason jars are wide mouth. This is the only like small mouth mason jar I have and I have all these cute lids for this one jar, so it's like playing dress up with your only jar. I never pre-sweeten my cold brew, especially when I know I'm sharing it with other people because I feel we all have different sweetness, you know, levels and some people like their personal drink more sweet and not as sweet, so I like to just keep this basic and when I pour it over ice into somebody's cup, then we can add sweetener to their liking. I like to wait at least 8 to 12 hours, if anything overnight. I will not drink this until tomorrow. She does all the work, you just gotta give her the time. She looks absolutely gorgeous and we'll see her tomorrow. It is the next day and this has been brewing overnight. So basically what we're gonna do here is take the tea bags out and you can also take the garnish out because if you leave it in there for too long it's gonna make it amargo, aka bitter. I'm gonna take one piece of garnish out for the drink. So here you have your finished cold brew. Because this is a cold brew iced tea, you don't have to add as much ice and you don't have to worry about it being watered down at all because this is already cold. I love maple syrup or agave for cold brews especially. Delicious. Starting strong here, this is actually one of my first ever viral videos on TikTok. This iced tea recipe went crazy and I was so so surprised when I saw that you guys enjoyed this as much as I do. So I actually used to work on a farm and instead of taking iced coffee or just coffee in general in the mornings, especially in the summertime while working on the farm, I always used to take this recipe. Like this is such a simple iced green tea recipe. We have citrus in here whether you want to use lime juice or lemon. We have our freshly brewed green tea that also has notes of peach in it and our very subtle and light sweetener whether you choose agave, maple syrup, or honey. This is a hit every time and honestly I love making this recipe for people who usually aren't tea drinkers and they're very surprised by it. I know so many of us like to drink iced coffee in the morning but if you've never had an iced black milk tea, you have to try it. Obviously you can use a loose leaf tea if you'd like but I'm going to be using the Tazo black tea because I like a strong black tea flavor whenever I do iced milk teas. I'm going to be using two of the tea bags. I'm going to do the same thing we did for the hibiscus one and only do six ounces of hot water. I like to do anywhere between five and ten minutes to get a good flavor and not have it be super bitter. After the five minutes are up, I like to just fully squeeze out even though it burns a little bit. Squeeze out all you can for that strong black tea flavor. Same as always, we're going to do lots of ice. A little spoon trick that we learned from Martha Stewart. I'm using maple syrup for this drink. As much or as little as you'd like. Of course some delicious coconut milk. Honestly it looks like coffee. I like saving the little tea bag and kind of setting it on top so it looks cute. This is creamy, light, refreshing, and it definitely still gives you that boost of caffeine if you're looking for that. It's so good. I really love an iced black milk tea. So for this recipe, I was low-key struggling, okay? It was day two of my period and before you say anything, I know you're not supposed to drink iced drinks. I know you're not supposed to consume caffeine when you're on your period. All I truly wanted that day was an iced refreshing black tea, okay? And as you can see, black tea is very versatile. You can make it with milk or you can we all know and love. If you ever want to try this a different way that isn't lime or lemon juice in there, try a fresh squeezed orange. I feel like the citrus really helps bring out the flavor in the black tea without masking it because sometimes I feel like an Arnold Palmer can just taste like lemonade depending how much lemon you add to it and you don't really taste the tea. But I feel like the orange, it just mixes super well with that black tea. It's fun, light, and super refreshing. Another very common question that I get is people asking, where do I start? Not a big fan of tea. I don't really like the flavor. What can I do to drink it? My advice to you is fruit tea. I have so many different kinds of fruit teas and these are super fun, super flavorful, and honestly, you can't even tell that you're drinking tea. For example, my younger brother is someone who does not like tea and who does not drink it regularly like I do and whenever I brew these, he will drink them and he actually enjoys them. No complaints. Peachberry tea here is a blend of apples, strawberry, raspberry leaves, peach, pineapple, kiwi, hibiscus. Raspberry velvet has to be one of my all-time favorites. This is actually a green tea but again, you don't really get that bitterness or strong green tea flavor because it's so masked by the raspberry and the fruity flavor. Two more examples for you. I have a mango ginger black tea and then this one is a papaya passion twist green tea. So again, very fun, very fruity. Like if you're someone who doesn't really enjoy the base flavor of tea, definitely incorporate some fruit in there and make it fun so you don't just feel like you're drinking plain black tea or plain green tea. Now while we make our last tea recipe of this video, I wanted to share some tips with you guys. I think one of my most common comments that I get is why is my iced tea watery? Why does it not taste like anything? And here's the thing. Whenever you brew a hot or fresh cup of tea and you want to make that ice, you always need to use less water. You cannot use a ton of hot water and pour that over ice because you're going to dilute it and you're going to end up with super watery, not great tasting tea. And especially for drinks like this one, which by the way, if you don't have the dried jamaica flowers, you can use the Tazo passion tea, but you always want to use less water especially for these teas that require milk as well. My advice to you is add an extra tea bag or use much less water than you think you actually need. This way you're left with a strong, powerful, and very flavorful iced tea. I hope this video was helpful. If you're already a tea lover, keep doing what you're doing. If you're not a tea lover and this inspired you to drink more tea, I am very excited for you and best of luck on your iced tea journey.