COLD BREW TEA

With summer well and truly upon us in New Zealand, iced tea season is also here. Iced tea can be made by conventionally brewing tea using boiling water and then leaving to cool or pouring over ice. An alternative method, however, is to make a cold brew tea. 

Cold brewing tea in fact produces a chemically different brew to the hot brew method. With boiling water, the fast moving water molecules hit the tea particles at speed which helps to break off all of the molecules that flavour the tea, including large molecules like caffeine and tannins. Cold water, on the other hand, contains less energy, so is only able to bring the most soluble molecules into solution. These are the carbohydrates – sugars. This means that cold brew teas can have quite a different taste to their hot brewed counterparts, often lacking the bitterness or astringency that can be found in a hot tea. 

Cold brewing tea is exceptionally easy to do: simply put a couple of teaspoons of your favourite TEA TOTAL loose leaf tea or  a couple of TEA TOTAL Pyramid Tea Bags in a jug or jar, fill with cold water and leave in the fridge for several hours or overnight. Strain out the loose tea and it’s ready to drink. Depending on preference you may wish to sweeten black teas with some sugar or honey or any sweetener of your choice.  

Fruit and flavoured green teas are often just ready to drink as they come.