If you’ve followed our recipes lately, you know we’re fans of fancy looking frozen desserts that require no machine and little effort. Continuing in that tradition, we present the refreshing tea granita! If you’ve never had a granita, it is usually made with water, sugar, and flavor, sometimes fresh fruit, and has a unique texture somewhere between sorbet and shaved ice. It’s exactly what you want on a hot day and a refreshing way to enjoy the sweet, floral flavor of our Jasmine First Grade green tea.

Ingredients

¼ cup honey

Instructions

1. Steep tea for 2.5 minutes. Green tea has a tendency to become bitter with over-steeping, so be sure to strain the leaves out at this point.
2. Add honey and stir well.
3. Pour the sweetened tea into a freezer safe container. The deeper  the liquid, the longer the “granitafying” takes. We used a shallow 8×8 pan.
4. Freeze for one hour, or until ice crystals begin to form around the edges.
5. Remove and stir the crystals into the liquid. Return to the freezer for 20 minutes and repeat. Continue this process as the mixture hardens, scraping the surface with a fork as it solidifies, until fully frozen and fluffy.
6. Store in the freezer until ready to serve. If it solidifies too much, let it thaw a little in the fridge and re-fluff with a fork.

Having mastered super-simple Vietnamese Iced Coffee Pops, we decided to try another lazy, low-tech frozen dessert: no-churn ice cream. This one might be slightly more lazy, given that an appliance does most of the work and the freezing happens in one step, not two.

Inspired by The Kitchn’s easy recipe for no-churn, 2-ingredient vanilla, we decided to try a coffee version, swirling fudge into the mixture before letting it set. It took minutes to make the ice cream base and the possible variations are endless. Tea, spices, or even herbs would make interesting flavoring alternatives, and mix in anything you like for texture.

Ingredients

• ½ cup cold, dark roast brewed coffee (we used Medium Roast Espresso)
• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 2 cups cold heavy cream
• Hot fudge (well, warm fudge)

Instructions

1. Pour the sweetened condensed milk into a large bowl and whisk in the cold coffee (or other flavoring), set aside.
2. Whip the heavy cream until peaks form. We used a hand mixer on medium-high.
3. Add whipped cream to the condensed milk mixture and blend by hand or on the low setting until combined.
4. Blend again on medium until the mixture is just thickened.
5. Pour mixture into a freezer-safe container (we used a standard size loaf pan) and cover with wax paper.
6. Freeze overnight or until firm and enjoy!

If you’ve ever added a splash of whiskey to your mug of tea, you know the flavors can pair very nicely. Tea softens whiskey’s bite while whiskey adds warmth and complexity. Inspired by the success of our Earl Grey Goose, we decided to see what a tea  infusion would do to a traditional old-fashioned. We decided to use spicy and robust rye as the base for our Spiced Chai Black Tea infusion. With a strong flavor of its own, the tea needed to steep for only two hours to infuse well.

Instructions

Add 1 tablespoon of loose leaf chai black tea and 8 ounces of rye whiskey to a sealable jar. Let sit for 2 hours, strain the tea and transfer to a bottle before using.

With more time, the subtle tea flavor will enhance, but the spices become unpleasantly strong. With a straight, unflavored tea, try infusing a few hours longer or overnight to start.

Spicy Old Fashioned Recipe

Add a little (or more if you like) simple syrup to an old-fashioned glass with ice.
Add a dash of bitters.
Add 2 ounces of chai-infused rye whiskey
Stir
Garnish with a twist of orange

Hopefully, this recipe inspires experimentation. Scotch, bourbon, rye, and tea share many characteristics  and can enhance one another, whether enjoyed side by side or blended. Mix and match and let us know what works for you!

Or Filthy Caucasian? Call it what you like, this recipe is for coffee fiends who believe that even coffee liqueur would be better with more coffee. This recipe was inspired by our dark roasted White Russian Iced Coffee, one of the best flavors of the summer. A shot of chilled coffee makes for a welcome addition to the classic drink. Try it with White Russian flavor or your favorite coffee brewed strong.

Ingredients

2 oz. vodka
1 oz. coffee liqueur
1/2 oz. fresh-brewed coffee, cooled
1 oz. cream

Instructions

Add the first three ingredients to ice in an a old-fashioned glass. Add the cream (or milk, or the milk-like beverage of your choice) and stir. If you prefer separation between the layers, pour the cream into the glass SLOWLY over the back of a spoon. Impress all your friends.

Hibiscus is a beautiful thing, but a little hard to drink straight up as a tea. Steep the dried flowers and the you get a purply-red infusion that is almost painfully tart. On the lookout for new ways to tame the flavor, we were excited to discover this recipe from Bon Appetit for a sweet, spicy, hibiscus-rose syrup. Try it in cocktails (thousand-flavor gin and tonic anyone?) and over fruit or ice cream.

What you’ll need

1/4 cup sugar

2 cups water

Seeds from 1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

1 vanilla pod

3 wide strips lemon zest

3 lightly crushed green cardamom pods

1 star anise pod

5 juniper berries

1/4 cup dried rose petals

2 tablespoons dried hibiscus

1 teaspoon pink peppercorns

1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns

For the full instructions, check out the recipe for Fruit Salad with Thousand-Flavor Syrup.