Were you just wondering how you could liven up your morning smoothie AND harness the power and nutrition of this month’s green tea?
We thought so!
It’s so easy:
The night before, cold brew your Enchanted Forest tea by placing 1 tbs in a 500mL (pint) mason jar, add cold water and a lid, shake and refrigerate until morning.
Wake up.
Make your morning smoothie as you normally would. We personally love:
pineapple
cherries
kale
lime
ginger
blueberries
…but it’s your smoothie, so let loose!
Put a tea strainer above your smoothie glass and pour the tea through, straining out the leaves to add the tea to your smoothie to your taste. We love a 1:1 ratio of smoothie to tea.
Throw a tablespoon of hemp seeds on top if you are feeling adventurous!
It’s time to get our fall on, tea drinkers. The leaves are crunching under our feet, the days are getting cooler, crisper and shorter. The perfect reason to drink tea!
This is a family recipe for milk tea, adapted here for this month’s Organic Rooibos Chai.
in a medium saucepan, over high heat bring to a boil:
1 cup milk
½ cup water
As soon as it starts to boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer the milk/water mixture. Add:
1 tbs Organic Rooibos Chai
Simmer this for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove from heat, strain into a tea pot, add 1 tsp sweetener and enjoy!
What better invitation for a summer cocktail than this month’s green tea? Grapes, apples and marigold flowers + crisp green tea = your latest excuse to do nothing. Here’s how it’s done.
1. Cold brew your tea! We hope by now you’re familiar with this wonderful process, but in case not: place 2 tbs loose-leaf tea in a 1-litre jar, fill with cold water, cover with a lid, shake and place in the fridge for a few hours, or until you remember you put it there. Setting a timer is work and the antithesis to cold-brewing.
2a. Non-alcoholic option: simply strain the leaves out of your tea and mix 1 tbs simple syrup, ½ cup cold-brewed tea and 1 cup soda water. Add a slice of lime, pour over ice and enjoy!
2b. Alcoholic option: Strain the leaves out of your tea. Mix 12 oz cold-brewed tea with ¼-½ cup Prosecco (or bubbly of your choice) to taste, 1 oz gin and 1 tbs simple syrup. Add a slice of lime, pour over ice and enjoy!
Did someone say summer cocktails? We have been having so much fun experimenting with iced tea! This recipe is just our spin on this summer drink but feel free to experiment and let us know how it goes!
1. Cold brew 1 litre of Blueberry Rooibos tea (2 tbs + 1 L of water in a mason jar, cover, shake and place in your fridge for a couple hours before straining).
2. Muddle some fresh mint with ¼ cup simple syrup at the bottom of a pitcher. (Boil equal parts water and white sugar until sugar dissolves, set aside
to cool. Simple syrup will keep in a jar in your fridge until your next
cocktail.)
3. Add whatever fruit you’d like to use (cut up oranges, berries, pineapple, etc).
4. Add tea, a bottle of wine, up to 2L of carbonated water (optional) and ¼ cup of brandy (also optional).
It’s spring! Well…practically…depending on where you live. We decided
that this weather and this month’s green tea were the perfect reasons
to make tea sangria.
We used this recipe from Minimalist Baker and swapped out half the wine for cold-brewed Organic Pear Green tea and it was delicious! Feel free to play with the ingredients or use your own sangria recipe, and let us know how it turns out!
Ingredients
½ pear, cored, skin on, chopped into small pieces
½ orange, rind on, sliced into small pieces, large seeds removed (plus more for garnish)
3-4 Tbsp brown sugar
¾ cup orange juice, plus more to taste
1/3 cup brandy, plus more to taste
1 ½ cups dry Spanish red wine
1 ½ cups cold-brewed Organic Pear Tea
Ice to chill (~1 cup)
Instructions
Add pears, oranges and sugar to a large pitcher and muddle with a muddler or wooden spoon for 45 seconds.
Add orange juice and brandy and muddle again to combine for 30 seconds.
Add
red wine, cold-brewed tea and stir to incorporate, then taste and adjust flavour as
needed. Feel free to add a bit more brandy, orange juice and brown sugar. Stir to
combine.
Add ice and stir once more to chill. Serve as is, or with a bit more ice. Garnish with pears if that’s your thing.
Store
leftovers covered in the refrigerator for up to 48 hours, although it’s
great when fresh, and even better enjoyed in the sun with your feet up.
In a small saucepan bring the water
to a boil. Add your tea leaves and remove pan from heat. Cover pan and steep
tea 5 minutes. Strain tea
through a fine sieve into a bowl, then add sugar, stirring until dissolved. Chill tea, covered, until cold and
freeze in an ice-cream maker. Enjoy!
This cocktail is so much fun! We threw together some fun Japanese ingredients to bring out the flavours in the five different teas blended into Tea Desire’s Japanese Treasures, featured in August’s tea box, blended right into the gin! (Use the cold-brewed tea instead of gin-infused tea ) to keep this alcohol-free.)
1 ½ oz infused gin (or cold-brewed Japanese Treasures) ½ oz. pickled ginger syrup ½ oz. sake ½ oz. yuzu juice or lemon juice soda water, to serve fresh grapes, halved, for garnish
Instructions
For the infused gin: Place loose-leaf tea in gin, let sit 6-8 hours. Strain out tea using a fine-mesh sieve and discard.
For the cocktail: Combine gin (or cold-brew tea), syrup, sake and juice in a cocktail shaker. Shake vigorously and pour into a glass filled with crushed ice that inspires excitement about life, cooler evenings and sunny days. Top with club soda, garnish with grapes and enjoy!
It’s August. We’re in the middle of a heat wave here in Toronto (which really could be the south, for all intents and purposes) and eating ice cream at the water park every day. So when I stumbled upon this recipe, I couldn’t resist! This is not for the faint of heart. Here it is people.
1 cup peaches, blanched, peeled, pitted and roughly chopped
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon bourbon
Instructions
To
make the ice cream, heat the cream, milk and corn syrup in a large
saucepan until just simmering. Add loose-leaf tea, lower heat to low and
simmer, keeping a close watch so it doesn’t boil over, for 10 minutes,
then remove from heat and allow the tea to steep for 2 hours.
Strain the mixture through a very fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth and try to squeeze as much of the liquid goodness out!
Whisk
together sugar and cornstarch until combined, then whisk into the
tea-infused cream mixture. Reheat and cook over medium heat, stirring
constantly, until the mixture reaches a gentle boil, then reduce heat to
low and simmer, stirring constantly, for 30 seconds (mixture will be
thick and bubbly).
Strain
mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a large bowl, then cover tightly
and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, at least a few hours but
preferably overnight. (Take our advice here.)
To
make the peach-bourbon swirl, toss together the peaches with cornstarch
and sugar and cook in a medium saucepan over medium heat until the
peaches have broken down and the mixture is bubbly, thick and delicious, 5 minutes
or so. Cool mixture, stir in the bourbon, and refrigerate until
thoroughly chilled.
Once both the cream mixture and peach mixture are chilled, process the
cream mixture in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s
directions. Purée the peach mixture in a blender or food processor
until smooth, then drop spoonfuls of both mixtures into a resealable
container, alternating between them. Run a butter knife through to
create a swirl effect, then freeze until firm. Makes about a quart. Which should last you about a day.
We are visiting family in Toronto this month and the heat is unreal! Let’s just say there has been a lot of watermelon and cold drinks consumed while we soak our feet in the kiddie pool. I’m not even joking.
This month’s green tea, citrusy and the slightest bit sweet from the strawberries, got me wondering what it would be like with a bit of gin…and some citrus zest to complement the lemongrass in the tea.
You don’t need to be living in a heat wave to enjoy it. In fact, if you want to infuse soda water (instead of gin) and make this non-alcoholic, I think that would be fabulous too! And still totally suitable to drink kiddie-poolside.
Ingredients
1 ½ cups dry gin, at room temperature
2 tbs Golden State Green Tea
¾ cups freshly squeezed lime juice
4-6 tablespoons citrus syrup (lemon version) to taste
6 lime wedges as garnish
For the citrus syrup:
2 cups Sugar
¾ cup freshly squeezed orange juice
¼ cup water
1 tablespoon grated lemon or orange zest
Make the citrus syrup
Stir the ingredients together in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally until the sugar is dissolved. Lower the heat to low & continue cooking until you get a syrupy consistency, about 4 minutes. Remove from the heat & let stand for 30 minutes. Strain though a wire-mesh sieve double lined with damp cheesecloth. Store refrigerated in an airtight container for up to one month. Makes 1 ½ cups.
Make the Base
Pour the gin into a 3 cup or larger pitcher. Add the loose leaf tea & let sit at room temperature for at least 1 hour. When ready to serve, strain out the tea and add the lime juice & citrus syrup. Stir until well combined.
Make the Cocktails
For each cocktail, add about 3 ¼ ounces of the base to a cocktail shaker that is 2/3 filled with ice. Cover and shake vigorously; strain into an ice filled glass.Squeeze a lime wedge over the drink & drop it in. Enjoy!
Where it’s not (ie, Vancouver), they keep you happy.
Basically, it’s always a good time for a tea pop.
Here’s how to make them:
Simply cold brew a jar of Maracuja Orange for 6 hours or more in your fridge. (Place 2 heaping tbs of loose-leaf tea into the jar, fill with cold water, shake, cover and place in your fridge. Give it a little shake every hour or so.) Once it’s finished brewing, shake it and pour through a strainer into another jar. Add 2 tbs simple syrup, shake and pour into your favourite popsicle molds. Place into the freezer and wait patiently.
Bring sugar and 1 cup water to a boil in a medium saucepan and cook, stirring, until sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Add pineapple, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let
sit 30 minutes to infuse syrup with pineapple flavor. Strain into a small
bowl; stir in vinegar. Cover and chill shrub until cold, about 30 minutes. Cover and chill pineapple pieces until ready to use.
Meanwhile, cold brew Berries Galore: place 2 tbs tea into a 1-Litre jar and fill with cold water. Cover, shake and place in the fridge for 3-4 hours.
Set aside 8 slices jalapeño and 8 pieces pineapple for serving. Stir mint, lime wheels, tequila (if desired), lime juice, remaining jalapeño and pineapple, 1 cup shrub, and 1 cup tea in a large
pitcher and chill at least 1 hour.
Serve in ice-filled rocks glasses garnished with
reserved jalapeño slices and pineapple pieces.
