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!

Sometimes when you can’t decide between two great things you should just try them together. The possibility of a new great thing is worth the risk that you will ruin them both. It’s a stuffy 89 degrees today and while a tall glass of iced tea sounds perfect, so does a margarita. Tea-ritas it is.

Tea-ritas are a thing, we did not invent them. There are many variations, and we tried a few before finding our favorite. Tea with a strong flavor stands up best to tequila, which is why we used English Breakfast black in our recipe, brewed strong. The result was a little like an Arnold Palmer with a kick, the black tea flavor perfect with the lime juice and Triple Sec.

Directions

Add 1 cup of strong black iced tea (we used Organic English Breakfast) to a cocktail shaker. Pour in 1 shot of silver tequila, 1 oz triple sec, 1 shot of  fresh lime juice, and 1/4 cup simple syrup or agave syrup. Shake it over ice and strain into a glass with a salted rim, if you like that sort of thing. Garnish with lime.

If you are a loose leaf tea fan, you probably know how to brew your favorite teas. If you don’t, we tried to make it simple on our Tattle Tea site by providing some general guidelines as well as specific brewing instructions for each tea, including amount of tea, ideal water temperature and steep time.

However, that’s per cup, hot. How does that translate to iced, especially if you’re used to throwing a bunch of teabags in a pitcher? Hot water brewing is an easy place to start. This method creates a concentrate that you can then pour over ice and can serve immediately.

Here’s our recipe for a half gallon of iced Orange Pekoe black tea.

What you’ll need:  

Large T-Sacs (we use two of the #4 size)

Two half gallon-sized containers (one should be suitable for hot liquids)

Measuring cup

Orange Pekoe loose leaf tea

1 quart water for boiling

Lots of ice

Directions

1. Fill two large T-Sacs with ½ cup of dry Orange Pekoe loose leaf black tea.

2. Boil a quart of water. We use the Ibis electric kettle.

3. Place the T-Sacs in a heat safe half gallon pitcher and add a quart of near boiling water.

4. Let it steep for 3 ½ minutes.

5. While your tea is steeping, take your second pitcher and fill it to the brim with ice.

6. When your time is up, remove the tea bags and pour your tea into the pitcher of ice slowly.

7. Once most of the ice has melted, add more ice until the pitcher is full again.

8. Pour, drink, enjoy.

Want to brew a smaller batch, or try another type of tea? The brewing instructions on our site and our packaging are for 8oz of hot tea. First, calculate how much tea you would need to brew your desired batch size normally, then double the quantity of tea. You will be pouring the hot tea over ice and adding more ice before serving, so to get the amount of hot liquid right, take your desired quantity and divide it by four. The math gets confusing to some, so just trust us on that.

One very important thing to remember: the steep time and water temperature is the same as for regular hot tea, regardless of strength desired or quantity of tea and water used. The best way to adjust the strength without getting a bitter cup is to adjust the ratio of tea to water, not the steep time.

If you want to try our whole leaf tea bags, English Breakfast tastes great iced. Use 13 bags for a half gallon, and the same steeping instructions.

Like long days lounging at the Jersey shore, enjoying buckets of fried seafood and spectacular people-watching, Strawberry Wave Cheesecake coffee is a seasonal delight you won’t find anywhere else. Inspired by the glorious cake below — baked by our shipping supervisor Lori — it’s here for only a short, sweet time, so enjoy it while it lasts!

Cheesecake may not be the first dessert that comes to mind if you’re in the mood for something light, but this recipe, adapted from a letter published in a 1962 issue of Gourmet magazine, promises to be just that — for 1962 anyway. The original recipe, titled “Mrs. Davis’ Unsinkable Cheesecake”, was named for the creator’s unsinkable determination to create a fluffier, less disastrously caloric version of the classic dessert.

Ingredients

1 1/2 lb cream cheese

14-oz can sweetened condensed milk

4 large egg yolks

1 cup sour cream

1 tablespoon Confectioners sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon orange or lemon zest

Strawberry jam

For the topping:

2 pints fresh strawberries

3-6 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Directions

1. Beat together the cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk. While beating, add the egg yolks one at a time and beat until very smooth.

2. Add the sour cream, Confectioners sugar, vanilla, and citrus zest.

3. In a separate bowl, beat 4 egg whites with 1/2 t salt until stiff. Fold into the cheese mixture.

4. Pour batter into a 10-inch springform pan lined with a cookie or crumb crust.

5. Drop spoonfuls of strawberry jam into the batter and cut through the jam and batter with a knife to create a swirl effect.

6. Bake at 275 degrees for 1 hour. Turn off the heat and let sit (door closed) for 45 minutes or more. The cake should cool completely in the oven. Remove from the pan when cold.

7. For the topping, mix 2 pints of fresh strawberries, sliced, with 3-6 T granulated sugar and 1/2 T fresh lemon juice. Serve on the side if you’re proud of your swirling knife work or just smother the whole thing in gorgeous juicy berries.