A glass of lemon tea can taste thin if the brew is too light. This café-style version starts with black tea brewed hot, so the flavor still comes through when it’s served cold.

Fresh lemon adds both tartness and fragrance. This recipe shows when to sweeten the tea, how to chill it without watering it down, and what to do with the lemon just before serving.

Ingredients

Ceylon or a robust Assam works well as the base. For the tea and the optional variations, gather:

- 4 black tea bags or 8 grams of loose-leaf black tea

- 4 cups (about 950 mL) water, plus more for optional syrup

- 1 large lemon

- 2 to 3 tablespoons sugar

- Ice for serving and, if needed, for chilling the pitcher

- Green tea or light oolong, optional

- 1/8 teaspoon salt, optional

This makes about 4 cups of tea before adding ice.

Steps

Have a clean pitcher ready. If you’re using loose tea, set out a fine-mesh strainer so you can remove the leaves as soon as the tea has steeped. Then follow these steps:

1. Heat the water until it’s just off the boil, around 95°C.

2. Pour the hot water over the tea bags or loose leaves and steep for 5 minutes.

3. Remove the bags or strain out the leaves. Leaving them in longer can make the tea bitter, even if you plan to sweeten it.

4. Stir the sugar into the warm tea until it dissolves. If you’d rather adjust the sweetness glass by glass, leave the batch unsweetened and make the syrup described below.

5. Transfer the tea to the pitcher and refrigerate it for at least 2 hours. If you’re short on time, set the pitcher in a bowl of ice water and check it after 20 minutes. The bath cools the tea without adding water to the pitcher.

6. Cut the lemon into rounds about 3 mm thick and remove the seeds. Set aside any extra rounds if you won’t be serving the whole batch.

7. Put 3 to 4 rounds in each tall glass and press them gently with the back of a spoon. Press just enough to release the fragrant oils from the peel without crushing the bitter white pith.

8. Fill the glasses with ice and pour in the chilled tea. If you’ve left the batch unsweetened, stir in syrup to taste.

Brewing notes

Filtered tap water is a good choice for brewing iced tea because excess minerals can give the brew an off-flavor. Chilling the pitcher before you pour also keeps the serving ice from melting as quickly as it would in hot tea.

The juice brings tartness, but the peel contributes the aroma that a squeeze of juice alone won’t give you. If you want a sharper glass, squeeze an extra lemon round into the tea just before serving.

Variations

For a lighter, more floral batch, replace half the black tea with green tea or light oolong. Brew the replacement tea separately in its share of the water at around 80°C for 3 minutes, then combine the brews. The cooler water helps keep the lighter tea from tasting bitter.

To make syrup, stir together equal parts sugar and hot water until the sugar dissolves. It mixes easily into cold tea, so there’s no need to reheat the batch to sweeten it. An optional pinch of salt, about 1/8 teaspoon per pitcher, softens the tartness.

Storage

If you’re making the tea ahead, keep it unsweetened in a sealed pitcher in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Store it without the lemon rounds, which can make the tea bitter if left in the pitcher. Sweeten and add fresh lemon to each glass when you’re ready to serve.

For a pitcher you’ll serve slowly, freeze some plain brewed tea in an ice cube tray. Use those cubes in the glasses so the last sips don’t get watered down.