Iced Tea from Great Lakes Tea & Spice and Mariage Fr?®res
It’s Bastille Day. What better way to celebrate the birth of the French Revolution than by drinking all-American iced tea? After all, we’ve helped each other out of a few scrapes in the last 200 years or so. It’s time to celebrate the things we have in common. In this case, tea.
There are two establishments that sell the very best tea in the world. One is in France, the other here in Michigan.
Let’s start in France with Mariage Fr?®res. This tea emporium has several tea houses around the world where you can dine and drink tea chosen to go with your meal. For them, tea is like fine wine. In fact, they’re currently selling Darjeeling nouveau. You can purchase from their website where they sell teapots and an iced tea blend (shown above).
Over here in America, the place to go is The Great Lakes Tea & Spice Company. They’ve put together special iced tea blends made with Assam tea from India – the best for holding up the flavor with melting ice. If loose tea isn’t your thing, you can buy muslin tea bags, too. Not only are their teas special and superb, the company is, as I said, from Michigan. Yay!
If we’re lucky today, misterarthur (who is in Annapolis today) will give us his secret for making the best tea. While we anxiously wait for his tips, let’s share our own. How do you feel about Sun Tea?
2 Responses to “Iced Tea from Great Lakes Tea & Spice and Mariage Fr?®res”
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Posted by Jennifer on July 14th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Wow! Thanks for the great advice. You can keep making the tea in our house. I wouldn’t want to compete with perfection. :-)
Thanks for the set up, Jennifer. I will agree that Mariage Freres and Great Lakes have great teas for sale. That said, I don’t know about making the best tea, per se, but I do have some recommendations about iced tea. I like iced tea as a thirst quencher, not an accompaniment for crustless sandwiches
First, make strong tea – stronger than usual. I like iced tea as a thirst quencher, not an accompaniment for crustless sandwiches. Remember, the tea is going to be diluted by melting ice, so you should compensate for the added liquid. Note: Don’t compensate by leaving the tea to steep longer than usual. That may make it “stronger”, but it will also give it a nasty stewed taste. Instead, put in more tea leaves than you usually would.
Next, I prefer making tea with boiling water than making “sun tea”. For the same reason mentioned above, I think leaving the tea leaves in the water long enough to make sun tea adds an unnecessary stewed flavor, which I don’t like.
Finally, I have a real affection for teas from Assam in general, and for iced tea in general. Darjeeling is too delicate for iced tea, I think, and I like the maltiness of Assam teas. (Don’t ask me about iced green tea, or flavored teas, or herbal teas. I don’t like ‘em).
As to the Assam teas, I go for straightforward, inexpensive CTC (crush, tear, and curl) tea. CTC teas are consumed primarily in the Indian market. Indians typically boil tea with milk, water, and some spices – so they prefer a tea whose taste can emerge through that process. (And Assam teas typically produce a beautiful rich, reddish color, which I like). So here’s what I do. I buy big (2 lb) bags of CTC from Indian or Pakistani grocery stores. It’s cheap, ($6.49 for two pounds) and produces very flavorful rich tea that takes sugar well, and stands up to dilution by melting ice.
I make it using a cotton tea “sock” which I put on the neck of a pitcher. To that I add tea, pour boiling water over it, and let it steep about three minutes. Put a heaping teaspoon per cup, and a couple more for the pitcher. Let cool, (you don’t have to let it cool all the way to room temperature, and pour into glasses with ice cubes in them. If you feel like adding some flavoring like mint, go ahead. I just toss in a teaspoon of sugar, stir, and enjoy.