Why Do You Need Instant Tea in Your Life
If you are a tea lover, or even if you just enjoy the convenience of instant coffee, you’ll love instant tea.
We’ll tell you about all the benefits to instant tea, how to choose the best quality instant tea, and even have an easy iced tea recipe you can make in less than 5 minutes!
What is Instant Tea?
Instant tea is a type of tea powder and similar to instant coffee crystal granules, it can be easily dissolved in water to make tea. It is made using either whole, processed leaves, fresh tea leaves, or undried fermented leaves. Liquids or compounds are extracted from the leaves and turned into a concentrate. This concentrate is then dried and turned into a powder through either spray drying, freeze drying, or the vacuum drying process. In order to preserve the natural flavors and taste of the tea leaves, it is ideal for the entire process to be performed in lower temperatures. Natural instant tea can be made from three types of tea leaves: black tea, green tea, or oolong tea.
Caffeine in Instant Tea
For those who prefer lower caffeinated drinks or have a low caffeine tolerance, you’d be happy to know that tea and instant tea contain less caffeine than coffee. According to the USDA, instant unsweetened tea has about 26.2 mg of caffeine per 8 oz drink.
4 Reasons Why You Would Want Instant Tea
1. Less waste
By using instant tea powder instead of tea bags, you don’t have to worry about creating more waste that come from the tea bag packaging and even the tea bag itself.
2. Control over the flavor of your tea
With instant tea, it is very easy to make your tea as strong as you prefer. All you need to do to adjust the taste of your beverage is to change the amount of tea powder that is mixed with your water.
3. No steep wait times
By replacing your tea bags or dried tea leaves with instant tea, you can save time in your day that is normally used for waiting for your tea to steep. This also makes it a lot easier to make a cup of tea when you’re on-the-go or even when you’re in a rush.
4. Easy to make iced tea
In order to make iced tea with brewed tea, you have to prepare it hours beforehand and then let it cool down. However, with instant tea, you can make iced tea with no wait time easily with room temperature water and ice.
How to Choose The Best Instant Tea
The quality of instant tea can vary depending on the brand and its make up. So how do you pick the best instant tea? Luckily for you, we can tell you a few ways of how to distinguish the best instant tea powder.
Best tea leaves
The quality of instant tea starts off with the selection of tea leaves along with the extraction and drying process of the tea concentrate. The characteristics of the tea leaves can vary depending on the region it is from, what type of tea it is, and if the tea leaves were picked at an optimal time.
No fillers
The best instant teas are ones made of pure brewed tea from high quality tea leaves without added fillers. These fillers include crushed up tea leaves, which reduces the quality of instant tea because all the unwanted parts of the tea leaf, such as metals, are not taken out.
No unwanted additives
Unwanted additives in instant tea could include things like artificial sweeteners and colors. This could degrade the positive health benefits of tea because it not only increases the amount of calories, but can increase blood sugar levels after consumption.
No added flavorings
Another unwanted additive in instant tea is added flavorings. This is because many times these flavorings are artificial additions and contribute to more sugar in the drink.
Iced Tea Recipe Using Instant Tea
Now that you know all the benefits there are to instant tea, we have a recipe for how to make iced tea using instant tea for you to enjoy during warmer days!
Ingredients
- 4-5 ice cubes
- 1/8 tsp quality unsweetened black instant tea
- Natural sweetener (optional)
Instructions
- Combine one cup (8-10 fl oz) of room temperature water with a premium instant tea powder. Feel free to use a mason jar for a more stylish look.:)
- Mix until the powder is fully dissolved
- Add natural sweetener if desired
- Add in 4-5 ice cubes
- Enjoy!
