Perfect for a refreshing afternoon.
Simple Recipes / Getty Images / Melina Nomura
My favorite time on a weekday is around 3:30 pm. My kids come home from school, we chat a little, and have a snack. It’s a quick break before I head back to my home office and finish up for the day. I like to bring a drink back to my desk to keep me motivated to finish that last bit of work before I stop writing about food at work and cook for my family.
My tiny home office is in what used to be a patio, which means lots of windows but no insulation. It’s cold in the winter and hot in the summer. I love iced coffee on sweaty summer afternoons, but getting my caffeine fix at 4pm can be a pain. La Croix canned coffee is easy to come by, but it’s more fun to have something a little more intentional and fancier.
Enter this Ina Garten’s Herbal Iced Tea.this is Barefoot Contessa Family Style This is the first Ina Garten book I owned in 1999. This tart mixed tea is steeped with red ginger and lemon ginger and naturally sweetened with 100% apple juice. It’s light, refreshing, and super easy to drink. Plus, it takes very little time to make. I like to whip it up while I’m clearing away the dishes from breakfast and have it chilled to perfection by my afternoon break.
How to make Ina Garten’s herbal iced tea
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Please make some tea. Steep 4 red ginger tea bags and 4 lemon ginger tea bags in 4 cups boiling water for 10 minutes. Discard tea bags.
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Please sweeten my tea. Add 4 cups cold apple juice and stir. Chill.
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serve. Pour iced tea blend over plenty of ice.
Simple Recipes / Getty Images / Melina Nomura
Reasons why I like Ina’s herbal iced tea
Iced tea is grown-up and a little retro. Growing up in Arizona, sun tea was a summer staple for me. My mom made sun tea with peach tea bags, but to me, her mom is the queen of sun tea. Iced tea and my nanny are inseparable. She always had a tumbler of iced Lipton filled with Sweet n’ Low.
Ina’s herbal teas are a good choice for anyone wanting to avoid too much caffeine, but opting for the ginger tea is super retro: Celestial Seasons has been making this tea since 1972, just a few years before Ina bought the Barefoot Contessa store, and the ’70s was clearly a good decade for food innovation.
But beyond a weekday pick-me-up, I think it’s the perfect non-alcoholic drink for summer get-togethers. Mix in some fresh berries, a slice of lemon, and some fresh mint to create a fake sangria that looks just like sangria. Pour it into glasses and toast with the kids, because I’m now a mom who keeps a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge.
Simple Recipes / Melina Nomura
Tips on how to make Ina’s herbal iced tea
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The first time I made this recipe, I accidentally bought raspberry ginger tea instead of the classic red ginger tea, but since both teas have a base of hibiscus and rosehips, it still turned out great.
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Using chilled apple juice will help the tea cool more quickly.
Read the original article on Simply Recipes.
