Making Perfect Iced Tea and a Giveaway!

This is my 100th Post! I have had so much fun with this blog. I started blogging after my daughter started a blog and I thought I need to try this... It was so easy to start the blog..click, click and within minutes I had one!! :) I wish I would have thought more about the name of my blog, there are so many clever and fun names out there! But like I said, click, click and I was up and running. My thought was to share information, pictures, and recipes with my family members who all live up North (I am in North Carolina), but blogging has brought me new friends and lots of great recipes and ideas for entertaining, sewing, reading, etc. Thank you all for making this so much fun!

For those of you have been following you know I own a gift shop with a small tearoom. Lately with the weather being so hot I have been getting a lot of questions on how to make ICED TEA! I prefer making my tea from loose-leaf tea because I think the flavor is better and the choices are numerous. I have three different ways to share:

To brew one gallon of Iced Tea with loose-leaf tea:

1. Use fresh cold water from the tap. Never reuse water that has already boiled -- the oxygen will have evaporated from it, this affects the taste of the tea.
2. Measure 1/3 cup tea leaves. Place them directly into the teapot or use a tea infuser or t-sac that is large enough to allow the leaves room to expand and steep properly.
3. Heat the water until it reaches the correct temperature: 160 to 180 degrees for green and white teas; 190 to 200 degrees for oolong teas; and a full boil for black teas, herbal infusions, and fruit blends. A six-cup teapot is a good size to use. Pour water over the leaves immediately and cover the teapot.
4. Steep the tea for the correct amount of time: 3 to 5 minutes for black teas, 3 to 5 minutes for oolong; 1 to 3 minutes for green and white teas; and 5 to 10 minute for herbal infusions. Don't steep too long, that can give your tea a bitter taste.
5. Immediately after steeping, remove the tea leave by straining the loose tea leaves from the teapot as you pour the tea into a pitcher or by removing the tea infuser or t-sac.
6. Transfer the tea to a pitcher and sweeten it if desired. Then add enough cold tap water to make one gallon.

Cold Brew Method

Put loose leaf tea or teabags into pitcher, fill with COLD water, put into refrigerator overnight. The next morning you will have perfect iced tea that never gets cloudy or old tasting!

Flash Chill Method (Using the Tea Forte Brewing Pitchers)

Brew Hot: Place one Tea Forte Tea-Over-Ice infuser, teabags, or t-sac filled with tea in pitcher, fill with 24 oz. of boiling water, steep 5 minutes.

Fill With Ice: Fill the bottom pitcher with ice.

Flash Chill: Pour tea over the ice.

Enjoy immediately!

Any of these methods will give you a delicious glass of "Iced Tea"....enjoy!

Now, for the giveaway:

The winner will receive a Teaforte Iced tea brewing pitcher and their Nantucket Sampler Collection of luscious white, black and Herbal, Iced Teas!

You have three chances to enter your name into the pot. Here it goes....
1st: Leave a comment here.
2nd: Tell me that you are a follower, if you are not one then become one if you like.
3rd: Post this giveaway on your blog and let me know that you posted it.

Good luck and thank you all so much for making this blog so much fun!! I will announce the winner next Thursday June 24th at 7:00 p.m.

Thanks again to Michael at http://www.designsbygollum.blogspot.com/ for hosting FOODIE FRIDAY, make sure to visit her to see what everyone else is cooking up this week:)