Can you steep tea in cold water? You sure can! Tea can be steeped in cold or room-temperature water. When tea is steeped in cold water it is referred to as “cold-brewed tea.” Any type of tea can be cold-brewed – black, oolong, green, or herbal teas.
Continue reading to find out how you can prepare your own vitalizing glass of cold brew tea at home.
In this article you'll find:
How to Make Cold Brew Tea
Because there isn’t any heat to help extract the tea’s goodness from the leaves, cold-brewed tea takes a bit more time to make, is less caffeinated, and not as pungent.
Follow these steps to brew your own iced tea at home:
- Add loose tea leaves to a pitcher. You can use the standard ratio of 1 teaspoon of leaves for every one cup of water, but we recommend using 2 as cold brew tea can me milder.
- Add cold water to the pitcher.
- Cover the pitcher and leave it out at room temperature for about an hour.
- Place pitcher in the refrigerator for around 12 hours.
- Strain your leaves out of the steeped tea.
- Pour over ice and enjoy!
If you feel your tea is too strong after steeping you can add some more cold water to the pitcher to dilute it. If you feel your tea is not strong enough after the 12 hour steep, then throw it back into the refrigerator for a bit longer.
You can also try adding a variety of sweeteners like honey, maple syrup (yes, really lol!!), fruit juice, brown sugar or even regular white sugar. Because the tea is cold though, you’ll need to do more stirring to dissolve your sweetener than you would for warm or hot tea.
Conclusion
It is nearly impossible to over steep the tea leaves when using the cold brew method, so play around and experiment with your tea leaf to water ratio and steep time. Luckily, cold brewing tea is an easy, foolproof method for brewing tea.
