This riff on the classic Arnold Palmer drink recipe keeps the familiar pairing of tea and lemonade but gives it a fresh twist with mint-blackberry tea instead of the usual black tea. It’s refreshing and so easy to make. You will want to mix up big glasses of it all summer long.
- Prep Time:
60 mins* - Cook Time:
5 mins - Total Time:
65 mins*
* Includes chilling time for tea and lemonade.
Despite living in Texas most of my life, I have never developed a taste for iced tea – sweetened or unsweetened. However, add some lemonade to it and then I’m interested. This should come as no surprise given how much I love fruitades like this mintade or this blackberry-blueberry lemonade.
The combination of iced tea and lemonade isn’t new. It became popular more than 50 years ago when golf legend, Arnold Palmer, started ordering the drink combination at his country club and then went on to bottle it lending his name to the beverage. The standard Arnold Palmer recipe uses unsweetened black tea. However, when I visited Smith Teamaker in Portland, Oregon a few summers ago, they offered a version using their blackberry jasmine tea.
It was little a fruity, a little sweet, and 100% refreshing. I was hooked.
What tea to use
I really like the blackberry jasmine iced tea blend from Smith Teamaker. It has some butterfly pea flower in the blend which not only gives the tea a deep blue color, it also turns a beautiful purple color when mixed with the lemonade.
If you can’t find the blend from Smith Teamaker, any blackberry tea will work. I would recommend not using any tea that has hibiscus in it. In developing this recipe, I found that the hibiscus flavor was too strong and overpowered the lemonade.
It is also important to note that each tea sachet from Smith Teamaker is designed to brew 4 cups of tea. This recipe makes a tea concentrate and uses 2 cups of water per tea sachet. For most other tea brands, the standard is to use 1 tea bag for 1 cup of tea. Therefore, you will need to use 4 tea bags to make 2 cups of tea concentrate for this recipe.
Mint-Blackberry Tea Lemonade
- Prep Time: 60 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings
- Category: Drink
- Method: Mixing
- Cuisine: American
Description
This riff on the classic Arnold Palmer keeps the familiar pairing of tea and lemonade but gives it a fresh twist with mint-blackberry tea instead of the usual black tea. It’s refreshing and so easy to make, you’ll want to mix up glasses of it all summer long.
Ingredients
For the blackberry tea concentrate
- 1–4 bags blackberry tea (see Note 1)
- 1/4 cup (packed) fresh mint leaves
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup cold water
For the lemonade
- 3/4 cup warm water
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
For serving
- Ice
- Mint sprigs, for garnish
Instructions
For the blackberry tea concentrate
- Place tea bag and mint leaves in a heat proof bowl.
- Heat 1 cup of water to a low boil. Pour hot water over the tea and mint leaves and steep for 3-5 minutes according to the teamaker’s instructions.
- After the brewing time, strain out the mint leaves and tea bag. Stir in 1 cup of cold water.
- Chill tea concentrate until completely cold, about 1 hour.
For the lemonade
- In a small pitcher, mix together water, sugar, and lemon juice until sugar is completely dissolved.
- Chill lemonade until completely cold, about 1 hour.
For serving
- Fill 4 tall glasses with ice.
- Pour 3/4 to 1 cup of lemonade into each glass.
- Slowly pour 3/4 to 1 cup (or to taste) of blackberry tea into each glass (see Note 2). Garnish with mint sprigs.
- After admiring the pretty layers, stir the tea and lemonade together and enjoy.
Notes
- I use the Blackberry Jasmine Iced Tea from Smith Teamaker which is designed to brew 4 cups of tea per tea sachet. If you are using a different brand and the instructions say to use 1 tea bag for 1 cup of tea, you will need to use 4 tea bags for this recipe.
- The ratio of tea to lemonade for classic Arnold Palmers is 1:1. However, the perfect ratio is really personal preference. Start with a 1:1 ratio and add more tea if you want something less sweet.
- Recipe adapted from Smith Teamaker.
Originally published .
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