Growing up in the south, tea was pretty much a staple, and the sweeter the better. We used to tease my sister when she made the tea about how much sugar she added. Would you like a little tea with your sugar, dear? Add a squeeze of lemon and you could hear the contented sighs.
Well, I still live in the sort-of-south, and I still drink plenty of iced tea. Just no longer sweetened. It's weird, but I always lightly sweeten a cup of hot tea, but I prefer my iced tea unsweetened.
Each morning I make a pot of tea. Into my mug, along with the delicious flavored teas I prefer, I add a teaspoon of stevia. I sit back, close my eyes and sip, savoring the taste and smell of whatever tea I chose for that morning. A piece of toast or some other savory type breakfast dish and I can face the day. Never anything sweet to eat with my tea.
When I am done enjoying the first cuppa, I do something some might consider odd. I pour the leftover tea from the pot into a pitcher and fill the rest of the pitcher up with filtered water. Then for the rest of the day, I pour this into a glass filled with ice and continue to enjoy my tea, this time as an unsweetened iced tea!
Honestly, I had never considered doing this before, and lamented how there would be days I found myself pouring out half a pot of tea after it had gotten cold (and I'm not hip on microwaving it to warm it up!) What a waste, I would think! Then one day I hit upon the idea of just adding it to a pitcher with more water and voila! Flavored iced tea was born. Okay, flavored iced teas are not original, but why I never considered doing this before I have no idea. I've consumed flavored iced teas at restaurants and thought nothing about it. At home, however, I would always fall back on the traditional orange pekoe bags to make the iced tea I grew up with.
Now I get to enjoy my tea all day long and no longer cringe watching a favorite morning drink swirl down the drain, wasted.
