Lemon Iced Tea

Ingredients

• 4 tsp black tea, or 4 tea bags
• 1.2 litres water
• 120 g sugar
• 3 lemons
• a few sprigs of mint

Method

1. Boil, then wait

   Boil 600 ml of the water and let it stand for a minute before it touches the tea. Water at a rolling boil scalds the leaves and pulls out tannins, and a bitter brew only gets more bitter once it is cold.

   1 min

2. Brew short

   Steep for 4 minutes and no longer, then strain the leaves out completely. Tea left sitting in the pot goes cloudy in the fridge as the tannins settle out.

   4 min

3. Dissolve the sugar hot

   Stir the sugar into the hot tea with the pared zest of one lemon until it has fully dissolved. Sugar will not dissolve into cold tea, and the zest gives far more lemon flavour than the juice does.

4. Dilute and chill

   Add the remaining cold water and the juice of all three lemons, then chill for at least two hours. Diluting with cold water rather than pouring hot tea over ice keeps it from going watery.

   2 h

5. Serve

   Taste once cold — it will need more sugar than it did warm, because cold blunts sweetness — and serve over ice with mint.