Best Teas for Iced Tea: Black, Green, or Herbal

Loose-leaf teas are the best way to make iced tea.  Loose-leaf is cheaper and higher quality because you're paying for the quality of the leaf rather than the packaging.  Although tea bags can make for convenient brewing if you don't own a tea infuser, I recommend buying one (my favorite is featured below).

I recommend choosing a strong black tea for making iced tea.  Assam and Ceylon teas, and teas marketed as "breakfast teas" like English Breakfast or Irish Breakfast all tend to make good iced tea, in my experience.  There are many good brands of black tea, but Ahmad Tea is my #1 recommended brand for iced black tea.  I recommend their Ceylon, Ceylon OPA, Kalami Assam, or Barooti Assam.  You can find reviews of Ahmad Tea by myself and others on RateTea.

A cafe near me, which has since closed, had a fantastic recipe for iced tea that was a blend of loose-leaf Ahmad Tea and Caykur brand Turkish tea.  Turkish tea is lighter and will result in a lighter flavor than Assam or Ceylon if brewing a similar amount.  As much as I love Chinese black teas, I find they have a warming quality that does not lend itself to iced tea as well as teas from India.  I prefer Chinese black teas (hong cha) in the winter.

The higher-grade green teas have a subtlety that I think is usually lost when making iced tea.

I don't have a favorite brand when it comes to iced green teas, but I do have favorite styles or types of tea.  I recommend chun mee or precious eyebrows; it is an inexpensive and widely-available type of Chinese green tea which has a brisk, tangy flavor that is perfect iced.  It is a type of young hyson tea, and young hyson in general makes good iced tea.  Gunpowder green tea is another type of Chinese green tea that tastes good iced, and it especially blends well with spearmint.  It has a smoky flavor that some people don't like.

Japanese green teas also taste good iced.  Sencha, which is widely available, often makes good iced tea, and hojicha (roasted green tea) is a great option if you want green tea but still want something dark and rich, with a mild roasted quality suggestive of coffee.  Hojicha also tends to be very low in caffeine.  Bancha (coarse tea) and kukicha (twig tea) are also good choices, also tending to be lower than average in caffeine.

A few of my favorite brands worth mentioning are Foojoy and TeaVivre for Chinese teas.  Wegmans supermarket also has outstanding Japanese green teas.

Some people want to avoid caffeine but still want to drink iced tea.  Although there are decaf teas out there, I personally don't think they taste very good.

Herbs that I think taste good iced include spearmint, peppermint, lemon balm, the Monarda species (Bee Balm, Wild Bergamot, and Oswego tea) which taste a lot like Earl Grey, and lemon verbena.

A trick to make it taste like black tea: a caffeine-free herbal blend that tastes a lot like black tea is to use red rooibos and raspberry leaf.  Add Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) if you want it to taste like Earl Grey.

If you want to make it taste like green tea, try green rooibos, which is rooibos that has been processed in a manner similar to Japanese green teas.

One of my favorite companies to buy bulk herbs from is Mountain Rose Herbs.  The best option for herbs though, if you are able to garden, is to grow them yourself.  Mint, lemon balm, and Monarda in particular grow very vigorously in most temperate climates.  Raspberry leaf is also easy to grow yourself.

There are different ways of preparing iced tea, but this is my favorite and recommended approach.

Ingredients and Equipment:

• 1 teabag or 1 teaspoon of loose-leaf tea per cup you plan on making.
• One cup of water or less (just enough to cover the tea completely).
• A mug or small pot to brew the tea in and a pitcher or larger container to store the cold tea in.
• A way of heating water.
• A refrigerator, or ice.

You can vary this recipe to taste.  The amount of tea is a total amount--you can blend different types of tea and/or herbs to suit your needs.  Use more leaf and/ol a longer steeping time to make the tea stronger.  If the quality of flavor is poor, try increasing the amount of leaf used and using a shorter steeping time.

Instructions:

• Heat the water to boiling (for black tea) or about 180F (for green tea).
• Pour the water over the tea and let steep.  I recommend 3-5 minutes, longer results in a stronger taste.
• Remove the tea bags or tea.  Cover the hot tea (to hold in the aroma) if possible, and let it cool. (Trick: for cooling it quickly, I pour the hot tea in a heat-proof canning jar and submerge it in a bowl or pot of cold water from the tap).  Do not do this for normal glasses; quick temperature changes can cause standard glass to shatter.)
• Dilute the tea to the amount of tea you wanted to make, and chill by putting in the fridge or pouring over ice.  If possible, store the tea in a sealed container; a pitcher of tea open to the air will lose its aromatic quality and may also be affected by the other smells in the refrigerator.

I recommend this technique, and not others, because I think that steeping the tea with the proper hot temperature is important for optimal flavor, and because only brewing a small amount saves time and energy for heating and cooling.

If you want to cold-brew, it can save even more energy, but you will generally need to experiment with teas, as not all of them work well with this method.  Cold brewing generally requires a much longer steeping time, and I find it works best with higher-quality teas.

Some things people like to add include:

• Mint.  I find spearmint works best for iced tea, as it has a natural cooling quality.
• Sweetener.  Although I like my iced tea unsweetened, you can sweeten it with sugar, honey, or any other sweetener.  It's easiest to add the sweetener when the tea is hot, because sugar dissolves faster in hot water than cold water.
• Lemon.  Lemon is especially good at cutting out the astringent qualities in strong black teas.  If you have a black tea that tastes too bitter or astringent, try adding lemon.

If you want to go fancy, I recommend experimenting with different types of mint and related herbs from the mint family.  My favorites besides spearmint are Monarda and lemon balm.