Cold Brew Your Iced Tea
You can always make iced tea by brewing the tea in hot water and cooling it off. In fact we do that quite a bit in the shop. But if you want an easier way, try cold brewing.
How:
Add one teaspoon of loose tea leaves (or 1 tea bag) per cup of water in a pitcher, fill the pitcher with cool water, and refrigerate it overnight. In the morning, strain out the tea leaves or remove the tea bags. Serve in an iced glass with lemon or mint for garnish and enjoy!
Why:
When you brew tea in hot water, the tea can get bitter if the water is too hot or you steep for too long. When you cold brew tea, it's a lot less likely you will over-steep. At least I haven't managed to do it yet.
And I find it fun to pour water over loose tea leaves and watch them swirl around.
Tip:
Sugar will not dissolve as easily in cold water so try a liquid sweetener like simple syrup or agave.
Pinkies Up?
This is going to sound like a controversial one, but this tea tip is don't put your pinky up when you are holding your tea cup.
There are several stories and myths surrounding why someone might put their pinky up when drinking tea. The most common ones I've seen have to do with minimizing contact with the cup for various cleanliness reasons.
1. Before it was common to eat with silverware, you would hold your cup with as few fingers as possible to minimize the amount of grease transferred from the food to your cup.
2. Similarly there are stories that people would use their pinky for dipping in spices which were rare in the time period of these stories. In order to keep the pinky dry and not waste the spices, they pinky was held away from food and drink.
3. Or in some stories, the upper class felt their servants weren't clean enough and used as few fingers as possible to touch things that were handled by them. Though I personally can't see how that makes sense when the servants are the ones preparing the food and drink as well.
But my favorite myths have to do with the raised pinky being a signal of some sort.
4. When a lady in court say someone she was attracted to, she would stick out her pinky to indicate interest. If that was the case, I don't understand why there isn't a whole genre of romantic literature around mistaken pinky raising.
5. And my all time favorite, an upraised pinky could be a sign of syphilis because the joint damage caused by syphilis would make it hard to bend your pinky finger.
In any case, I have not found a compelling reason to hold your pinky up while drinking your tea. Instead, I enjoy wrapping my hands around a warm mug while breathing in all the varied aromas.
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