Early this month, a very sweet friend sent me some books to read for our new book club. Along with the books (Which are delightfully annotated, by the way!) there was a birthday treat: An adorable teacup for my collection, and a can of tea in a variety I’ve never tried before.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not sure why I’ve never made sun tea. And let me tell you, the bags for a whole pitcher of tea at once are huge. This one is raspberry sun tea from Oliver Pluff & Co. From the can alone, I had a feeling I’d like it.
Oliver Pluff’s thing seems to be recreating historical teas. I don’t know a lot about the history of sun tea, admittedly, beyond the fact that it’s not always safe. Tea sitting out at room temperature for long periods of time can grow unpleasant things you don’t want to drink. The modern way to make sun tea apparently doesn’t involve the sun at all: Instead, you put it in the fridge.
Five hours later, I added sugar (which might have gone better if I’d mixed it into warm water and poured that in, instead of trying to stir sugar into cold water…) as directed and gave it a taste. The end result?
Way too sweet.
The instructions on the can said to use two thirds of a cup of sugar to the full gallon of tea, but that result was something like the super-sweet, rot your teeth kind of Deep South sweet tea. Fine for some people, and I guess it makes sense, but the tea has so much powerful natural sweetness from the raspberry that it’s really not necessary to use that much.
The flavor was very smooth and lacked any hint of bitterness, since there was no heat to draw out the tannins from the black tea, so it very well would have worked as an unsweetened iced tea – as horrible as that may sound to some. Honestly, it might be the only time unsweetened iced tea is acceptable.
The berry flavor is vibrant, but blends well with the strength of the black tea and doesn’t overpower it. Nicely balanced, well-formulated, and delightful. I kept the pitcher in the fridge so it would stay cold, but pouring it over a glass full of ice made it super refreshing, and perfect for the particularly warm early spring days we’ve had the past few weeks.
As far as fine quality teas go, it’s reasonably priced for the massive quantity that goes into each tea bag, and this is going to be a wonderful treat for the hot summer days ahead – I’ll be saving the rest of it until late May, when we start to have super-hot temperatures, but this is a great addition to an under-served portion of my tea collection: Teas meant to be served cold.