Not Your Famous Southern Sweet Tea

June in America is, among other things, National Iced Tea Month. June 10, 2011, also happened to be National Iced Tea Day. With temperatures hitting the mid-90s every day, the timing seemed perfect to experiment with iced tea.

A check of the cabinet found Russian black loose tea and dozens of boxed-up teabags. Yerba Mate, orange pekoe, peach, raspberry, white, green, and rose offered plenty of base ingredients. Since June 10 was also National Herb & Spice Day, that’s the direction I went.

I started off with orange pekoe collected from Chinese take-out meals. Nearly out of coffee, a day of iced tea seemed to go well with 95 degree temperatures on a sunny afternoon. About six years ago I bought a spoon-shaped tea infuser on the clearance rack of my favorite grocery store. I put some dried rosemary in the infuser, closed it up, and put it in the cup to steep with the teabag. My bargain infuser wasn’t worth the promises. It was, however, worth the dollar I paid. Curled up dry rosemary leaked from the edges of the infuser leaving evidence of the flavor floating in the tea and hugging the sides of the cup. It was worth picking rosemary from my morning drink.

The next test was simple: Green tea with ground ginger. It was good. Izzy and I liked it better than the first tea. My preference, I must admit, was influenced by no need to pick hard, stem-like things out of my cup. I think Izzy preferred it because she got more of it. I think it may have worked better with candied ginger rather than powdered.

My favorite of all the teas came on Saturday. Green tea with five-spice powder was a winner! I love cooking with five-spice. Never thought I’d want to drink it. I drank three cups. I remembered my five-spice chicken with orange marmalade, five-spice pork chops with cherry jam, and five-spice chicken with cocoa and hot chile. They were all done in a sauté pan. Most ended up overcooked. With the heat that should stick around past Thanksgiving this year, I think I’ll play with my five-spice tea and the slow cooker.

Think I might carry this tea experiment past the end of June. Hot or cold, sweetened or not, flavored teas are a pleasant change from the plain unflavored water I drink by the pint (at least 10 cups a day!) and slow down the need for coffee.