Southern-Style Iced Tea

Sweeten your iced tea with honey for a refreshing drink.

By Laurey Masterton
From “The Fresh Honey Cookbook”
January 2018

Total Hands-On Time: 25 min

Yield: 4 servings

Add mint to your tea for extra refreshment.
Photo by Pixabay/Pexels

“The Fresh Honey Cookbook” by Laurey Masterton is filled with bits of honey lore and beekeeping history to sweeten your exploration of the varied and delicious ways you can use honey every day.
Cover courtesy Storey Publishing

Whether you keep bees yourself, support local beekeepers, or just love honey, The Fresh Honey Cookbook by Laurey Masterton (Storey Publishing, 2013) presents recipes for every time of year featuring different honey varietals and seasonal ingredients.This recipe is for making tea, sweetened with honey instead of sugar.

Buy this book from our store: The Fresh Honey Cookbook

I migrated to the South after a childhood in the North, where I had known iced tea as only a summertime drink. In North Carolina, tea (the “iced” is assumed) is a year-round beverage. I’ve gotten used to it. Here’s my honeyed version. By the way, if you have enough sun in your area to make “sun tea” (by putting tea bags in a glass jar filled with water and letting it sit in the sun for a few hours), simply add honey while the water is still warm and you’ll have nice sweet honey tea — just like that.

Ingredients:

• 6 tea bags
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup honey, preferably avocado honey (depending on how sweet you like your tea)
• Fresh mint sprigs for garnish

Instructions:

1. Bring 4 cups water to a boil. Add the tea bags to a heatproof pitcher, and pour the boiling water over the tea bags. While the tea is still hot, add the honey.
2. Allow to steep for 20 minutes to make a strong tea. Remove the tea bags.
3. Cool to room temperature or, better yet, make ahead of time and store in the fridge until ready to serve.
4. To serve, pour the rich sweet tea into ice-filled glasses. Garnish with mint sprigs.

More from The Fresh Honey Cookbook:

• Coconut Macaroons with Dried Cherries
•Broiled Peaches
•Chunky Heirloom Tomato Gazpacho with Lemon Crème Fraîche
•Creamy Chicken and Coconut Curry
•Fresh-From-The-Garden Beets with Oranges and Blue Cheese
•Switchel

Excerpted from The Fresh Honey Cookbook, © by Laurey Masterton, photography by © Johnny Autry, used with permission from Storey Publishing. Buy this book from our store: The Fresh Honey Cookbook