Summer Snowflakes Made of Tea!
Shake up that summer snowglobe of places you can visit all over the world within a simple cup of tea.
Enter stage left “Tea Ices!” Is it hot enough for summer snowflakes?
English Breakfast or Earl Grey pearly creamy sorbet? I try to escape the heat and envision myself on a trip to Harrods, all crisp tailored and cool. Perhaps a Casablanca movie and romantic dinner with Morrocan Minty ice sorbet with fresh spearmint or peppermint and green tea? Beijing Lapsang souchong tea leaves which are honey dipped ices for munching with your finest silver spoon with the Olympic gold rush of pedal to the gold medal athletes on? Earl Grey with fresh organic rose petalsmor violets. Served in a martea-ni James Bond classic stemmed glass of black currant tea ices over a shot of Black currant Absolute vodka trimmed with fresh berries or little floating leaves atop the iced goodness. Oh it is endless and, yes, each tea can be a special snowflake. Elegant ices simply made of tea!
The more pleasant the quality of leaves chosen, the higher the caliber of will flavor result. Sticking with no more than a three minute infusion increment is a safe bet; as a rule of thumb, most camelia sinensis leaves will go bitter often before. You can experiment in general with allowing good either filtered or bottled spring water. The temperature is no different than a culinary approach. Lower the temperature for a more delicate extraction of flavor which gives you more control when it comes to green delicate leaves. Much easier is to simply wait for the water to cool a bit and make sure to use good fresh enchanting leaves. This recipe is a clickity click snappity snap piece of cake! Mind you, it can be made as sweet as you like or virtually calorie free. Served here in beautiful tea cuppa’s.
There are many recipes, and here is a simple example from Los Angeles Times with ratios you can adjust to other teas, such as omitting the milk or adding fresh herbs or fruit.
Earl Grey Tea Ice
Total time: 8 minutes, plus cooling and freezing time
Servings: 4 to 6
2 cups boiling water
2 tablespoons Earl Grey Tea
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup milk
1. Pour the boiling water over the tea and sugar. Steep for 3 minutes. Strain.
2. Stir in the milk. Cool to room termperature.
3. Pour the tea mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions. (Alternately, pour the tea into a wide shallow dish, place in a freezer and allow it to freeze around the edges, 1 to 2 hours. Remove the dish from the freezer and scrape the ice with a fork from the outside edges to the center. Repeat this process every half an hour at least 3 times until the entire mixture has turned into small, sequin-like ice flakes.)
4. Spoon into tea cups to serve.
