We're not big tea drinkers. We love the idea of tea, but rarely get around to actually drinking it. As a result, we have a few boxes of old tea bags in the pantry collecting dust. (The boxes, not the bags.) I have since discovered that I prefer loose tea, and I thought about chucking the old boxes of tea bags, but I have a hard time wasting food of any sort.
So when the weather was warm here (we're in a cold and rainy spell, but the heat is coming back tomorrow), I started brewing up big batches using the tea bags and sticking it in the refrigerator for summer afternoon iced tea. I'm on our fifth batch now, and I'm having more fun that I imagined. (And probably more fun than one should have simply brewing old tea bags.) I'm even combining teas that don't belong together, like green tea and Lady Grey. Scandalous!
Today I had some leftover orange zest (because I made this gingery rhubarb crisp) and a quick internet search led me to believe it would be good with chai tea. I have a whole box of chai! Of course, I made a batch right then. Can you tell I'm relishing all this free time that comes with summer break?
I just had my first glass. The orange scent with the chai spices is quite lovely. I did strain out the orange bits, and I held myself back from squeezing that whole orange into the brew because Chef Google suggested it would curdle milk. I don't always add milk to my tea, but on the off chance that I do, I certainly don't want it to curdle. Nothing that comes out of my kitchen could be worse than curdled milk.
I figure I'll run through my old dusty tea bags in the next two weeks. Anything crazy I should try before I'm finished?
