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Wellesley Tea
Make same as Iced Tea, having three crushed mint leaves in each glass into which the hot infusion is strained.
A two-line variation that depends on a recipe printed elsewhere in the book. The whole method is in the phrase "into which the hot infusion is strained" — the tea goes over the mint hot, then over ice.
- The missing base recipeThe book's iced tea recipe is printed elsewhere and is not reproduced here. Period iced tea generally meant a strong hot infusion, strained and poured over ice, with sugar and lemon offered separately. A long steep on the leaf gives a tannic bitterness that ice only sharpens.
- The hinge: hot tea onto the mintPouring the hot infusion directly onto the crushed leaves in the glass is the point of the recipe. The heat pulls the volatile oils out of the mint in seconds; mint dropped into an already-cold glass contributes almost nothing but a smell.
- Crushing, not muddlingThree leaves bruised between the fingers or pressed once with a spoon is enough. Grinding mint hard releases chlorophyll and a grassy, slightly bitter note, and the fragments then float through the drink.
- Glass and iceA hot infusion poured into a thin chilled tumbler can crack it. Use a heatproof glass, or pour the tea into the mint in the glass and add ice only once it has stopped steaming.
- Which mintSpearmint is the likelier intention, and the milder choice; peppermint is markedly more aggressive and will dominate the tea. Three leaves is a light touch — scale up if the leaves are small.
- SweeteningThe recipe says nothing about sugar. Granulated sugar will not dissolve in a cold glass, so sweeten while the tea is hot; if you sweeten later, use syrup.
Wellesley College, the Massachusetts women's college founded in 1870, gave its name to a whole family of turn-of-the-century recipes — Wellesley fudge is the best-known survivor. Dishes were routinely christened after the women's colleges in this era, partly as a compliment and partly because the colleges themselves were newly fashionable subjects; a cookbook trading on that association was selling a certain kind of respectable modernity along with the drink. Iced tea itself was still a relatively young habit in American homes, generally traced to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, so a mint variation printed in a beverage chapter marks the moment when cold tea had become settled enough to have refinements.