Strawberry & Blueberry Iced Tea

Sweet Tea is a staple here in the South!  Annie of Annie’s Noms is here today to share a fruity take on this classic drink. Hope you enjoy her Strawberry & Blueberry Iced Tea.

Hi everyone! I’m Annie from Annie’s Noms and I’m so excited to be guest posting for Jerri today. As soon as I got the email asking to contribute to her “Summer themed” recipes I just knew I wanted to do it!

I originally started my blog a little over 2 years ago, I had recently moved in with my partner and decided that I really needed to learn to cook/bake! I baked as a child with Mum, but through my teenage years, I got lazy and didn’t really do much! When I got my own kitchen, I learnt to cook and started to bake again; I fell in love with it all over! I find it almost therapeutic to be mixing and baking things in the kitchen; when I was studying at Uni it meant I had a little time to myself to think about things other than studying!

I was a silent follower of many food blogs before I started my own and initially I just wanted to have a place where I kept a record of all the things I made, rather than just jotting them down. I didn’t expect anyone to want to read them! Fast forward 2 years and people actually like my recipes! I’m still shocked every day with how much my little blog has grown, it’s a lot of hard work, but I just love it. I generally stick to sweet treats: cookies, cakes, cupcakes etc. but recently I’ve been trying to broaden my horizons and include simple, refreshing drinks which are perfect for Summer. I totally understand that people don’t want to be in a hot kitchen baking for hours when it’s really hot out because I’m like that myself!

I’m a self-taught baker with a little help from Mum, every time I make something I learn something new! I now develop 95% of the recipes for my blog myself and am always looking for new inspiration. I’m the perfect example of how a complete novice has mastered the kitchen and if I can do it then you can too! The recipes you’ll find on my blog are simple, but delicious; I want to make baking available to anyone and everyone!

So today, I’m sharing this Strawberry and Blueberry Iced tea recipe with you. It is super simple and apart from chilling, there’s hardly any other prep work.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Iced tea. I tried a fresh lemon one recently and loved it, but I really don’t like bottled ice tea from the store.

In the hope that I would convince myself I love iced tea, I decided to develop my own using fruits I love. I’m a real berry person and always have tons of different types in the house, so it seemed perfect to combine sweet strawberries with juicy blueberries.

I simply brewed some breakfast tea and left it to cool, then I put it in the fridge for a few hours to chill. Once it’s chilled you simply have to purée some frozen strawberries and blueberries, (we get bags of them ready mixed in the UK) sieve them into the tea mix and stir. Add a little sweetener and it’s ready to serve.

So with a few ingredients, you have this perfect Summery drink and you still get your caffeine hit! I really fell in love with this iced tea; the tea wasn’t overpowering, and it was sweet enough, without being sickly sweet. Of course you can add more or less sweetener to taste.

The flavors were really balanced and it was very refreshing. I don’t know about you, but even though I love tea, having a steaming hot cup in the heat of Summer makes me feel hot and sticky.

I’ve seen a few iced tea recipes around the web which use a lot of sugar. I know some people prefer sugar and in cakes etc I do as well, but, for me sugary drinks are a real weakness and I tend to forget just how much sugar is in them when I’m guzzling them down to keep hydrated, that’s why I decided to make this tooth friendly!

That’s about it from me, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this recipe! A huge thank you to Jerri for inviting me to guest post this Summer 🙂

Strawberry and Blueberry Iced Tea

Yield: 4-6 servings

Ingredients:

 4 ordinary tea bags

 6 cups boiling water

 1 and 1/2 cups mixed bag of Strawberries and Blueberries, frozen (if you can’t get a mixed bag, do 3/4 cup of each fruit)

 1/4 cup sweetener (add more or less to taste)

 Ice cubes to serve

 Strawberries to garnish, optional

Directions:

 Place the tea bags into a large heatproof jug and pour 6 cups of boiling water over them. Give the mix a little stir and leave to brew for 5 minutes.

 Remove tea bags after 5 minutes and leave to cool. Once cooled, place in the fridge for 4 hours until chilled.

 Place the frozen berries into a mini food chopper and blitz until smooth. If you don’t have a mini chopper, place the berries in a medium sized bowl and use a hand blender to purée.

 Sieve the berry mix into the jug of tea and stir until combined.

 Add in sweetener, 1tbsp at a time until you’ve reached desired sweetness.

 Serve over ice cubes with a strawberry to garnish, if desired.

 Iced tea will keep in a lidded pitcher/juice bottle, in the fridge, for 2 days.

Notes:

1. Use a fine mesh sieve if you have one, I used the finest one I had, but a few strawberry seeds escaped (as you can see in my photos!!)

Recipe by Annie of Annie’s Noms