The Quickest Way to Make Iced Tea
The Ice Chill Method is the fastest way to prepare iced tea and it can be done in two simple steps.
- Brew a hot tea concentrate
- Pour it over ice
There are a lot of ways to prepare iced tea and some take longer than others. When you’re looking for a quick fix to quenching your sudden iced tea craving, we have the direct route to refreshment.
To make the best tasting iced tea, we recommend a slow brew; however, in this particular circumstance, the last thing we want right now is slow. The fastest way to brew tea is hot and to turn that tea into iced tea all we need to do is pour the brew over ice. There is no need to refrigerate the tea, we don’t have time for that anyway, and the ice will do all of the work for us quickly. This is the shortcut to ensure fast iced tea every time.
In situations like these, we are generally looking to satiate an immediate impulse, so, below we have provided a recipe for preparing a half gallon of iced tea. If you are in a last-minute jam for party preparations, the same principles apply so simply double or triple the recipe and you’ll be good to go.
1. Brew a Hot Tea Concentrate
The reason we are starting with a hot tea concentrate is that we are using ice to cool the tea. When we pour hot tea over ice the majority of the ice melts, thereby, increasing the amount of water. If we don’t use tea concentrate we will water down our iced tea and nobody wants that.
Recommendations: You can use whichever tea you like, but if you’re looking for the classically brewed iced tea we recommend a Ceylon, or Nilgiri black tea.
Making the tea concentrate…
- Bring water to just below boiling at about 200°F (any hotter and it just takes longer to cool)
- Pour hot water over 3 to 4 tbsp. of loose leaf. Let it sit for no more than 5 minutes. (Pro Tip: Make sure the vessel is made of glass and allows enough room for the leaves to expand)
- Remove leaves and stir in the desired amount of sugar until dissolved
2. Pour Tea over the Ice
Now we get to the cool part. Get it, cool part? Anyway, this is how we make the tea iced and that is by adding ice, ice, and some more ice. Now that we’ve got our concentrate here’s what we’ll do.
Cooling the tea with ice…
- Fill a 2-quart pitcher to the brim with ice
- Pour tea over ice. Fill the remainder of the pitcher with water if needed
- Stir generously and enjoy your quick fix of iced tea in glasses full of ice
There you have it. If you want iced tea quick and easy than this is how you get the job done. Keep in mind that for the best iced tea you want to start with the best ingredients, from the quality of the tea to the quality of the water you use. This all will contribute to the quality of the tea you drink. Happy steeping!
