sweet basil and mint iced tea

By gocatgo

you may not think of basil as an herb you would use for tea, but being in the mint family it shares many of its sweet, cooling properties. and they go very nicely together. pick up some fresh herbs at the farmers’ market and it will only cost you a few dollars to whip up a batch!

Ingredients

• half a bunch of fresh mint (about 1 ounce)
• half a bunch of fresh basil (about 1/2 an ounce)
• 1/3 c maple syrup (or agave/unprocessed cane suger/yacon syrup)
• 8 c water (1/2 gallon)

Details

Servings 8
Adapted from sweetbeetandgreenbean.net

Preparation

Step 1

put 4 cups of the water on to boil while you rinse your herbs. i like to use my trusty french press anytime i make tea. it’s big and sturdy so it can whole a lot of herbs and water. if you don’t have a french press you can put the herbs in a muslin bag or straining bag and steep them in a pitcher. if you don’t have any of these, you could probably skip straining it all together, since the leaves remain whole there aren’t many little bits of anything in the water.

pour the water over the herbs and let them steep for at least 10 minutes. save a little of the water to add to the maple syrup in a separate container, to make sure it’s melted and incorperates well with the tea.

strain the tea, boil the other 4 cups of water and steep the leaves again. the tea from the first round should be very strong, so this second steeping gets additional taste out of the leaves but also waters down the batch a bit.

mix all of the tea and maple syrup together in a large pitcher or bottle. taste test it and if it’s still too strong add a bit of water to your liking. refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.

this tea is great to bring to picnics, barbecues, on hikes or any other summer event. it’s cool, refreshing and just a tad sweet.