Cold-brewed tea is one of my favorite things ever.
No, not iced tea. Cold-brewed tea.
You literally take tea bags and cold water and put them in the fridge in a container and leave them there overnight. In the morning, you have iced tea. And it’s smooth tea that doesn’t get bitter or over-brewed no matter how long you leave the bags there.
Different people use their own ratios of tea to cold water — but my current favorite is 1 tea bag to 16 ounces of water. For those who use loose tea, a tea bag is equivalent to 1 teaspoon. This is about half strength going by the hot tea-brewing advice, which advises a tea bag to every 8 ounces, but since you’re leaving it there so long, you really can cut the amount of tea in half, and it comes out great.
(There’s a reason, after all, that a lot of people will brew a second cup of tea off a single bag — it doesn’t exhaust the bag, not by a long shot.)
I’ve done this process with all kinds of tea at this point. I’ve done it with your standard black tea. And I’ve also done it with white tea, with excellent results (white tea has a very delicate flavor when consumed cold but a delightful one). The other day, I tried it with rooibos and was delighted at how much the nutty, smoky flavor came through in cold-brewed form.
Anyway, cold-brewing tea is so easy and so good. Yes, it takes a little time. There’s no instant gratification involved — but the result is so much better than normal iced tea (where you hot brew it and ice it).
Good Things Are Worth Waiting for & Hard to Screw Up #
Some of the best relationships I’ve had ever had — whether they were romantic, friendship, or some mix of both — were very similar to cold-brewing tea.
We took our time getting to know each other and appreciating one another’s company. We weren’t in any hurry.
And instead of some magical thin window of opportunity slamming shut in our faces, these folks are still in my life.
Conversely, I’ve had others jump into my life, demand quick action, try to force things — and even at times when I sped up and matched their pace, I’d often find that the rushing helped nothing. We weren’t compatible. Things went badly and exploded.
And then there was bitterness.
Ah, that bitterness.
Interestingly, I’ve found the opposite to be true. When we’ve gotten to know each other more slowly, even the times when it wasn’t meant to be, the partings were easier. There was less bitterness. A lot like cold-brewed tea.
I dunno. Sometimes it feels like the universe is sending me a message: Good things are worth waiting for and hard to screw up.