Happy national iced tea day! Green iced tea meets freshly squeezed blood oranges in this summery recipe. It isn’t as sweet as other homemade iced tea recipes, but I think this is what makes it so refreshing. It’s basically very citrusy. Green tea has tons of health benefits and I know that it is great for detoxing the body. I always love making iced tea from scratch because you can control how sugary you want it and add in fun components like cinnamon, mint and lemon.
Blood oranges are more bitter than oranges but sweeter than grapefruit. So it is generally bitter-sweet, in my opinion. You will need a citrus reamer or citrus press for this recipe. I used to squeeze oranges by hand but these handheld tools get more juice out of the fruits and is less work. For the choice of sweetener, I always use either honey or white (granulated) sugar. Lemon also takes this green iced tea up a notch I think because it tastes a bit bland without it.
Making homemade iced tea requires you to leave the teabags to steep (soak) for as long possible in boiling hot water. Thus, all the flavor is extracted from the tea bags. This green iced tea is better served chilled, so pop this in the fridge for at least 30 minutes for a tastier iced tea. If you’d like a boozy blood orange drink, have a look at my blood orange red sangria. Cheers!
Ingredients
6 cups boiling hot water
10 green tea bags
4 blood oranges, cut in half
1/2 lemon, squeezed
1 cup granulated sugar/honey
Tray of ice cubes, to serve
Fresh mint leaves to serve
Blood orange slices, to serve
Instructions
- Pour the hot water into a very large bowl. Place the tea bags in it, leaving the strings on the outer edges of the bowl so that you don't have to fish for it later as you take out the bags.
- Let the teabags steep for at least 2 hours, covered.
- Then after a few hours, take out the tea bags and transfer the contents of the bowl into a 2L-capacity jug or pitcher.
- Squeeze all the blood oranges into the jug and add the sugar and lemon juice. Check the sweetness level and adjust as needed.
- Refrigerate this for at least 30 minutes prior to serving for better flavor.
- Serve over ice in glasses with fresh mint and extra blood orange slices.
