Home-made iced tea

With the summer seriously taking off, here's a fantastic way to make your own ice tea. This will require some loose tea, preferable of a decent quality. If you're living in Belgium and you're not sure where to find it, Delhaize is selling rather decent loose biologic green tea. It is sold in a small wooden box, labelled Ceylon tea or something.

We all know hot water can be used to steep your tea, however cold water can be used as well. It takes a bit longer, but it's also very healthy since the all the good substances in the tea aren't destroyed by the heat. There are numerous articles on the positive effects of green tea. Some scholars even speak of 'The Asian paradox', referring to the fact that in some regions of China and Japan people smoke and drink like there's no tomorrow, but have lower rates of cancer than in other, 'healthier' regions. This would be because of the consumption of green tea.

So here's what you do, take a bottle of water and add some tea leaves to it. About three or four spoons should do the trick. Shake it a bit so all the tea gets wet, and then put the bottle in the fridge for a night. The day after filter the tea out and there you have your basic iced tea. It's nice to add some flavour from fresh fruit juices (try lemon, it's great). Alternatively syrups can be used. To make it a bit sweeter use honey or liquid sugar. There you have it, just add a few ice cubes, put it in a really thick straw and enjoy!

When I was in Taiwan three years ago I drank liters of this type of drink, daily. It's very popular in the tea houses during the summer, and is often called 'bubble tea' because of the layer of bubbles that forms at the top when you shake it. In such tea houses one can choose between black or green tea, the type of flavour, how much sweetening and how much ice and of course the size of your cup. Happy slurping!