Strawberry Iced Tea

What a great combination! Freshly ripe strawberries and loose leaf tea! Yum!

Strawberry Iced Tea
2 cups whole strawberries (cleaned, hulled and frozen)
4 cups of fresh water
2 Tbsp loose black tea (in a large tea ball, TSac, or cheesecloth)
¼ - ½ cup of white sugar (to taste)
¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 1 ½ lemons)

1. Heat two cups of the water to just below boiling.
2. Dissolve the sugar in one cup of the hot water
3. Place the tea leaves in the other cup of hot water and steep for 3-4 minutes
4. Remove the tea leaves and discard (great mulch for roses, azaleas and rhododendrons). In a heat-proof pitcher, add the hot tea to the remaining 2 cups of water.
5. Set aside 4 strawberries.
6. Place remaining strawberries in a blender or food processor and purée until smooth.
7. Strain the puréed berries and discard the seeds
8. Mix together the puréed berries, tea and lemon juice.
9. Chill until ready to serve. Serve over ice, using reserved strawberries as garnish.

Our favorite teas for this recipe are Darjeeling Gopaldhara or Ceylon Labookellie as the black teas for this recipe, although Longjing green tea and Ti Kuan Yin Royal oolong also result in a lovely strawberry iced tea.