Directions

STRAWBERRY OOLONG TEA

1. I used tea bags for this drink. The instruction says for every cup of water use 1 tea bag. I like to do a higher ratio because once the tea is made, you will dilute it with ice.

2. Put 8 tea bags into 5 cups of water. Cover it and bring it to a boil.

3. Once it is bubbling, let it simmer on low heat for another 2 minutes. Take the tea bags out and squeeze all the liquid.

4. Add some sugar. Taste and adjust the sweetness. You want it to be a bit sweeter than what you normally like because we will add ice into the tea. An optional ingredient is the strawberry jam. Just to give the tea another level of strawberry taste so it has depths of flavors. Let it sit without the lid so it can cool down a little bit.

5. While waiting, we can crush the strawberry and roughly chop it. You can blend them if you want. Just personally, I prefer this way because it is quite fun to take a sip and be able to chew the real strawberry.

6. I also reserved some strawberry slices for garnish.

7. Fill up your jar with ice and pour the tea in. Add in the crushed strawberry and the strawberry slices. Mix it up and you are done. Sometimes I like to weak up early in the morning and spend 20 minutes to make the tea. Then I have enough drink for 2 days. It just such a good thing to do for yourself.

ORANGE GREEN TEA

1. 4 cups of water, 8 tea bags. Bring it to a boil. The first tea I let it simmer on low heat after boiling. But for the green tea, I don’t do that because overcooking it will take away the freshness of the green tea.

2. Add some sugar to taste. You can also skip the sugar if you want it to be sugar-free.

3. Leave it uncovered so it can cool down a little bit. While waiting you can grate some orange zest and squeeze the orange. From 5 big juicy orange, I get about 2 cups of juice. You can slice some orange for garnish. Honestly, you don’t really need to do this if you don’t chase for the presentation.

4. Fill up your jar with ice. Add in the orange juice, zest. There is a risk of over-adding the zest because it tastes slightly bitter. 1 tbsp is the amount I think it brings enough flavor without ruin the drink. Pour in the green tea. mix it up and it is done.

5. Green tea gives you a feeling of the spring season. Very refreshing and delightful. Goes well with the orange. It is great when you need a nice cold drink.

BLACK TEA

1. It is like an up-grade lemonade and much more delicious.

2. You can still use tea bags but since I have the black tea that I got from China. I am going to use this. 5 cups of water, 30 grams of loose black tea. Bring this to a boil and let it cool down a little bit. Drain it so you can get rid of the leaves.

3. Add some sugar to taste. Mix it well. Let it cool down a little bit and we can juice our lemon. If you want this to be quick and easy, you can use bottled lemon juice. I got 1 cup of lemon juice from 12 lemons.

4. Next, make the magic ingredient - sweet mint paste. Some fresh mint leaves put it in a mortar pestle. Add some sugar to help to grind it. You can also use a blender. I don’t have that today and a mortal pestle is my only choice. I love that fresh mint flavor, very nice, cool and sweet. We gonna use about 1 and a half tbsp of that.

5. Fill up your jar with ice. Add the mint paste, the lemon juice, along with the black tea. Top some lemon slices and mint leaves. Mix it up. And it’s done. This is my favorite out of these 3 recipes. It tastes like lemonade, but way better than that. That black tea and mint, are the keys!