Iced Tea
4 teaspoons tea 2 cups boiling water Follow recipe for making tea. Strain into glasses one-third full of cracked ice. Sweeten to taste, and allow one slice lemon to each glass tea. The flavor is much finer by chilling the infusion quickly.
A concentrated hot infusion poured straight over ice — the double-strength method that still gives the cleanest-tasting iced tea.
- The ratio is deliberateFour teaspoons of leaf to two cups of water is roughly twice ordinary strength. The melting ice dilutes it back, so do not reduce the tea thinking it looks heavy.
- "Follow recipe for making tea"This points back to the book's own tea recipe. Instructions of this kind generally call for scalding the pot, pouring water at a full boil over the leaf, and steeping only a few minutes. Longer steeping draws out more tannin, which can turn harsh and bitter once cold.
- Chill fast, as instructedThis is the hinge of the recipe. Tea cooled slowly goes cloudy as tannins and caffeine bind and precipitate; pouring the hot infusion over a full load of ice keeps it clear and tastes brighter.
- Cracked iceIce broken small in a cloth with a mallet, not cubes. Small pieces chill the liquid almost instantly, which is the whole point; if you use cubes, fill the glass generously.
- SweeteningGranulated sugar dissolves slowly and poorly in cold tea. Either sweeten the hot infusion before straining or use a simple syrup.
- YieldTwo cups of concentrate over ice fills two tall glasses, or three modest ones.
Iced tea appears in American cookbooks through the second half of the nineteenth century, and is often said to have been popularised at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair — a story that is traditional rather than documented, since printed recipes for it clearly predate the fair. What made it practical in the household was ice itself: the commercial ice trade, and later domestic mechanical refrigeration, put cracked ice within reach of ordinary kitchens, and cold drinks moved from luxury to routine. The instruction to chill the infusion quickly shows a writer paying attention to results rather than habit; the same principle governs iced tea made today.