Summer Iced Tea

I thought it would be fun to start doing some posts about other parts of my life and share little tips that work for me, recipes, home decor...that sort of thing :) I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a comment!

One of my favorite things to enjoy as the weather warms up is iced tea. I think I may like iced tea more than hot tea, though I do drink both. Years ago when my husband and I were first married we would buy Arizona Tea in the summer. As yummy as it is, it's really high in sugar and quite expensive. So I started to make my own.

I will make this for parties and when we have people over and I always get so many compliments on it and then they ask what's in it. My answer is always the same, lots of flavors of tea and I can't remember which ones! My "recipe" is to mix lots of flavors of herbal tea together, add a little honey and you've got a wonderful iced tea. I do follow a general rule of thumb to get a nice complex flavor:

*Use at least 6-8 tea bags.

*Use 3-4 tea bags that have a "zip" to them. Our favorites are peppermint or ginger.

*Use fruit flavors for the rest of the tea bags.

*I pour about 3 Tablespoons of honey into the pitcher I make it in along with the tea bags.

*Pour one boiling tea pot of water into a PLASTIC pitcher. Do not use glass...ask me how I know!

*Let the tea steep with the lid on for at least 15 minutes, longer if you want it stronger.

*Add ice to fill up any extra space in the pitcher (I use a gallon size one) and then refrigerate.

This is not a sweet tea but has just enough hint of honey that it mellows all the tea flavors. My favorite tea brand to use is the sampler fruit box from Celestial Seasonings. I usually buy whatever the least expensive peppermint tea is as I can't tell a difference. I hope you'll give it a try! If you do I'd love to hear how you like it :)

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!