Our ambient weather conditions in Boston today are empirically indistinguishable from a steam bath, so I figured this would be a good time for my very first iced Earl Grey experience.
I brewed up three filterbags in about 16 ounces of water and observed the liquor becoming progressively darker reddish-brown (read: Assam) over the course of a few minutes. I removed the bags and let the tea “cool” down a bit before pouring some over a glass of ice.
Well, it’s not very good. It’s quite bitter, a problem which I would address in a hot brew with a slosh of cream. Somehow the idea of cream in iced tea does not sound very appealing. It’s not quite a contradiction in terms, and I certainly have imbibed my share of cream-laden iced drinks (Frappuccinos, etc.), but I am debating adding some True Lemon instead, to turn this into a full-on lemon-tinged black iced tea…
update: I added a hefty spoonful of True Lemon and then the brew reminded me of instant iced lemon tea from my childhood in the burbs of a land-locked state. At first I tried to drink it, because I needed caffeine. But then I asked myself: Why am I doing this? I mean, it’s not as though I have some sort of tea shortage chez moi! ;-) I tossed the rest and brewed a new batch of a different tea.