As the weather starts to warm up more and more I find myself switching from darker warmer teas over to lighter more refreshing teas. I drink way more green tea and white tea in the spring and summer than I do in the winter or late fall. To me, dark teas are meant to warm you up, they just get inside you and start heating up every limb until you aren’t cold anymore. But green tea(or white tea) has this ability to refresh you and fill you with energy, that’s why I love drinking it on a hot summer day. Plus, it makes an awesome iced tea too!
Some other uses I’ve found for green tea is making a simple syrup out of it and using it in my summertime cocktails. It’s really easy to do too! Just brew a cup or two of really strong green tea, and stir in an equal amount of sugar while it’s still warm. You can use this mixture to sweeten lots of things, but I mainly use it in cocktails because it’s easier than trying to stir grainy sugar into a cold drink. I’m sure there are plenty of other creative ways of using it though.
Recently I’ve also taken to using white tea or green tea as base for smoothies. It adds an interesting flavor to the fruit blends and I just love it. The tea flavor takes the back seat and becomes more of an after taste of the juicy sweet fruit that you use. These are great for pool parties or BBQs because you can make it in batches and hand it out to people.
How do you like to use green tea? Do you have any particular tea that you prefer to drink in the summer? If you’re into baking, maybe you could try out these green tea muffins? I have that recipe saved for this fall, but if you try it out, let me know how it turns out!
Pittsburgh Tea Lover 