OT: Low sugar iced tea recipe?

I just drink mine "straight". How about no sugar or sweetener, enjoy the tea simple.

ps

Straight up and on-the-rocks, with a squeeze of fresh lemon here. My favorite tea for making iced tea is Constant Comment, or Stash Orange-Spice if I want decaff. I also keep Red Rose Original on hand. None of those requires sweetening IMHO.

Beverly

sounds good. We really to not each much sugar/sweet stuff around here, and I've really lost my taste for (most) sweet things.

Tippling? ;->

I make decaf tea 2 quarts at a time, any brand, using 2 of the 'family size' tea bags (each usually says is for a quart). After it cools a bit I add

1 Tablespoon sugar (white ordinary sugar). Then put it in the refrig, covered. This amount of sugar cuts any bitterness (if I don't boil the tea, forgetting it is on the range) and DH and I are happy with it. If you like lemon, fine, we usually don't add it. DD likes it sweeter, DS is happy with it.

Jean

Michelle, Some of the tea shops here use stevia as a sweetener in their teas. Stevia seems to be a bit of a controversial subject from what I have read on the web. You can see the details at

or or I've seen a number of teas available that have stevia in them. Read up on it and see what you think. Good luck. I hope you find a good recipe. What about honey? Does honey trigger problems for her or does it make the tea taste funny?Marilyn in MN

Have you tried stevia? rice syrup?

I used to make iced tea by the gallon and would only put 1/2 cup of sugar in it, and it was fine, so some of it might be her having to get used to less sugar.

When you boil the water for the tea, put a spoonful of turbinado sugar for each quart of water. Test that and increase or decrease the amount per your taste. The raw sugar will melt better in the boiling water than when added to cooled tea. You can also gradually reduce the sugar content over a period of time -- slowly, so it is not noticeable.

Hi,

Why not try using Jasmine tea instead of regular black tea.

I make a big pot of Jasmine tea in the normal way, remove the tea/bag, then cool it to drink.

The Jasmine adds a sweetness and perfume that doesn't really need sugar.

A mix of Orange Formosa and Jasmine is quite pleasant too.

Anisah

Doug&Michelle wrote:

I've been making sun tea this summer, using loose Twinings English Breakfast Tea. Start with cold water in a clear pitcher/jug/large jar, add tea bags (or in my case tea in a filter bag), and set in the sun to steep for a couple of hours. It's been great; I haven't made sun tea in probably 15 years, but this has been perfect: no bitterness and just a slight sweet edge to it (I would hazard a guess that using loose tea is helpful in decreasing bitterness, as is not using boiling water). I use about 3 rounded teaspoons of tea to 1/2 gallon of cold water. You could probably skip the filter bag and just put the tea directly into the water -- even though I'm decanting into a different pitcher, I can't be bothered to strain it, hence the bag.

HTH

-j

I wouldn't recommend that:

for a child or anyone with a compromised immune system.

Beverly

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions! I ended up making 2 litres with 3 bags of orange pekoe (what I had on hand). I boiled the water with the tea bags in the pot, then took it off as soon as it boiled, covered it and let it sit. I intended to come back for it in 20 minutes, but got distracted helping my sister strip wallpaper. So two or three hours later I remembered it, but it was fine, I guess there is only so much flavor in those bags LOL. I took them out and added a half cup of raw sugar and a quarter cup of lemon juice. DD was in bed by the time it cooled off.

I tried some myself, its a bit sweeter than we are used to, so for the next batch I will remove about 3 tablespoons of sugar and see how that tastes. I would use honey but DD has some weird dislike of it, I don't know why, she never tried it but she "hates it". LOL the mind of a 6 year old.

I use honey in my baking though, when she isn't looking. I eliminate half the sugar in the recipe, use splenda or raw sugar, add a bit of honey, some extra baking powder and play around with the recipe abit. Usually it works out ok, but doesn't rise as well because there is less sugar.

I prefer the raw sugar now, its better tasting than splenda. I even started putting it in my coffee and tea.

Thanks everyone!

Michelle Giordano p.s. Back with google groups, I am not recieving all replies on the other server for some reason, I only saw 3 replies to this post.

Thanks for the heads-up.

I'm not particularly worried for myself or my husband: I always use a freshly washed pitcher, refrigerate promptly when the tea's finished and either drink it or dump it by end of the day. But I'll have to carefully consider whether to serve it to any guests.

I'm careful, but I refuse to be paranoid about the food in my kitchen. :)

-j

I started using turbinado sugar because of my vegan son. Regular sugar is processed with gelatin, which is an animal product. I put it in my bread and it works just fine. Honey can be tricky because it often has an invisible mold. It is not recommended for infants, as you probably know. I think cooking kills the mold spores, but straight out of the jar it may have it so your daughter may be instinctively acting in her own defense.

I'm diabetic, and I can't tell the difference between regular sugar and Splenda. I use 1/4 cup for two quarts of tea. My doctor says Splenda is safe, and there is no aftertaste, as there is with other sweeteners. I hate tea, but husband and brother-in-law both say mine is excellent.

Teri

I'm one who can tell the difference between Splenda and sucrose... it's by far the best of the artificial sweeteners, imo.

If you don't like tea, but you like that sort of sub-acid flavor, you might try switchel, an old haying drink.... dilute apple cider vinegar + sweetener of some sort... molasses, honey, maple syrup, sucrose of any description, even artificial sweetener. Usually a bit of spice like ginger. You do want the better grades of cider vinegar, though... try some of the unfiltered organic ones, as they have a much more pronounced apple bouquet. You can also use fruit vinegars of other sorts... blueberry vinegar, for instance. Lots of recipes on the web... but basically something on the order of a cup of vinegar, a gallon of water, half a cup of sugar, a little ginger or cinnamon, sometimes a bit of salt. Electrolyte replacement power drink long before Gatorade.... and it tastes better, too!

Kay

When I put sugar in my tea, I like to put in enough to make light syrup -- but I've come around to thinking it's best with no sweetener at all.

The adjustment is easiest if you go cold turkey, rather than putting in just enough sugar to make you think that it ought to be sweet.

I make black tea by putting loose leaves in a jar, filling it with cold water, and leaving it in the refrigerator overnight. There's no hurry about getting the leaves out; if they sink, I usually just pour the tea off them when I want a glass.

Green tea won't make by that method so DH puts "a rounded teaspoon" of gunpowder tea -- he uses eating spoons, so that's probably a level measuring teaspoon -- into a glass saucepan, covers it with a quart of cold water, and sets it over very low heat. It takes an hour for it to start boiling around the edges, at which time he turns it off and lets the leaves settle five or ten minutes before straining it into a half-gallon jar. Then he puts any leaves in the strainer back into the pan, adds another quart of water, and does it again.

Sometimes he puts in a cinnamon stick, and sometimes he picks four fresh spearmint leaves.

You can also make "tea" out of whatever herbs appeal to you -- a good way to clean out the spice cupboard when some of the boxes are getting a little dusty.

My favorite hot-weather drink is plain seltzer with just a dash of whatever fruit juice is handy -- put the juice into the glass first so that you won't need to stir it and flatten the fizz.

When my rhubarb can spare a leaf, I like to whizz up a slice of stem in cold water in the blender. Judge the amount of rhubarb by how much lemon you would squeeze into that much water.

And if you're feeding someone who needs *lots* of sugar -- a bicycle-racing team, for example -- you can boil rhubarb in water, strain it, add sugar to the juice while it's hot, chill it, and dilute it to the strength of lemonade.

Joy Beeson

Mmmmmmm, I *love* switchel!!!!!! I use ginger in it, and it's as good as ginger ale! It doesn't seem to keep very well, though -- but I buzz everything in my Vita-Mix and it ends up tasting very slightly carbonated.

That is my favorite as well. I like my tea and coffee straight, no sweeteners, no milk, cream, etc. Emily