Summer Iced Tea

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My man Dan is a picky tea drinker.  Do you know any picky tea drinkers?  I mean, I know there’s the whole sweet vs. unsweet tea thing with southerners leaning heavily on the “sweet” side, to say the least.  But his concept of good tea is; “it must be fresh brewed, never refrigerated and preferably never sweetened before it goes into his tea glass”.  He’s not much of a hot tea drinker but boy does he love some iced tea!  I’m good with how he likes to drink his tea and I’m even better now that I’ve convinced him that iced herbal tea is delicious and green tea can be delightful poured over ice too.

These last few weeks in North Carolina have been rather hot and steamy.  It seemed like a good time to pick up some herbal teas to refresh us on these hot summer afternoons.  When I ran into Walmart to grab cleaning and paper supplies I breezed by the tea aisle to see what choices they had.  I found a substantial variety of herbal and green teas by Bigelow.  In fact they offer over 130 varieties of flavored, green, organic, herbal, decaffeinated and iced teas.  I also discovered they are America’s largest family-owned tea company, 100% American and celebrating their 70th anniversary . I’m all about supporting products made locally, or if you will, in the USA, so I threw a box of Perfect Peach and one of Green Tea with Lemon in my basket.

I brewed up a pitcher of each when I got home and left them on the counter, NOT in the refrigerator.  When my hubby walked in after a long day at work and spotted the two pitchers of fresh brewed tea in the kitchen he got a big smile on his face.  He questioned me, “what is this?”.  When I told him one was peach and one green with a hint of lemon he couldn’t decide which to try fist.  So I poured up a glass of each, sweetened both with a bit of honey, (you knew I’d do that right?) and then added ice. Just the way he likes it.

I can’t do caffeine after lunch time as it seems to affect my sleeping but since green tea has a much smaller % of caffeine in it I don’t seem to feel the same effects as if I were drinking coffee.  The herbal tea of course has no caffeine.  Over the weekend I made several pots of fresh tea. My man was a happy guy.  I enjoyed a glass of the herbal, while relaxing in my favorite orange lounger, under the shade in the backyard while catching up on that stack of unread magazines this weekend.  I wish I could make time to spend at least an hour over the weekend doing just that – every weekend!

How do you relax when the weekend comes? Do you live with a picky tea drinker? I’d love to hear your stories – especially if you know a picky tea drinker. I have no problem with brewing up a pot of tea and refrigerating it to drink the next day – and I do that sometimes for myself…but not for my picky tea drinker.  They say, “a happy wife makes for a happy life” but I’m here to tell ya’ a happy husband is a pretty good thing too!