Cold Brewed Iced Tea - A light refreshing drink

I have been battling with weight for a couple of decades now and over the past year or so I have been making changes to my eating that is slowly starting to make a difference.          I came to realize that the ingredients used and the processing practices of factory food does not work for me.  The simple carbs, especially the fructose / glucose corn sweeteners, the excessive fats and salt that are so ever present are the exact things that I cannot consume if I want to lose weight.

I am pretty careful about the food I bring into the house now but have been much less careful about the things I drink.  I did stop buying pop for the house years ago but replaced it with juice and iced tea.  When I chose the iced tea I was careful to select an iced tea that did not have fructose / glucose in it.  I thought I was making good choices.  Then just before Christmas I checked the label again and they had replaced the natural sweeteners with fructose / glucose.  This reinforced that I cannot leave the production of food and drink for my home in the hands of factory food producers.

However it was not just the factory that was letting me down, I took a look at the beverages I was consuming and realized that between mocha, iced tea, and fruit juices I was consuming hundreds of unnecessary calories a day.  This needed to change so I started looking at what I was going to drink.  The easy choice is water.  However I like flavor, I admit it I am a flavor junkie.  And if I don’t like the changes I make when I get back into the grind of every day life the change will fall away.

So after doing some research I went back to iced tea.  I decided to make my own cold brewed iced tea.  I went to the Halifax Seaport Market and got some lose tea from the Tea Brewery.  The lady who assisted me suggested Mango and Passion Fruit Green Tea and Orchard Peach Black Tea.  I worked with these teas and came up with the recipe below for my own cold brewed iced tea.  The cold brewing preserves the nutrients in the green tea and the flavor of this high quality tea makes sweetener virtually unnecessary for my tastes.  In the first week I enjoyed so much of this tea that I ran out and tried some Stash Chi Tea and it was also great.  I went back to the Market yesterday and got 2 more flavors to try.

This has been so enjoyable and has helped me knock hundreds of calories of of my consumption that I had to share it with you.

Iced Mango Passion Fruit Green Tea

1/4 cup of Loose Mango Passion Fruit Green Tea

8 Cups of Cold Water

Juice of 1 Lime

1 Tbsp of Honey

Pour loose tea into a glass container with the 8 cups of water.  Allow to sit on the counter for about 3 hours.  Strain and pour into a pitcher.  Add the lime juice and honey, stir and chill.  Serve over Ice.

Iced Orchard Peach Black Tea

1/4 cup Loose Orchard Peach Black Tea

8 Cups of Cold Water

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Honey to taste (I did not add any)

Preparation Instructions as above.

Cold Brewed Iced Chi Tea

4 tea bags of Stash Chi Tea

8 Cups of Water

This was a simple cold brew and drink.  I did not find the need to add any sweetener or acid.  

Play with this with what ever your favorite tea is.  Cold brew it, and then if you find it bitter add a little acid (lemon / lime juice) and then sweeten to taste.  This is a healthy alternative to juice, pop and other commercial sugar based drinks.