I have made this many times both hot and iced. It always tastes good hot (without any sugar, and you can steep forever. In fact, the longer it steeps, the better), but I’ve had trouble making it taste as delicious iced as Teavana makes it when they give out free iced samples in their store. (This was actually the first loose leaf tea I ever bought because I enjoyed the sample so much.)
It seems I finally stumbled upon the right balance of leaves and sugar when making it iced for this to taste the way I want it to. Per 16oz of water I used 4 teaspoons of tea (2 each of Strawberry Lemonade and Blueberry Bliss) and 2 teaspoons of rock sugar. I’m already forgetting how long I steeped it for, but I think it was around 10-14 minutes. I left it in the fridge overnight and it tasted AWESOME.
After the initial steep, I put all of the used leaves (about 12 teaspoons total because I made two pitchers worth of tea) in one pitcher, adding just 2-3 teaspoons of sugar, and poured about ~30oz of boiling water over the leaves. This second steep lasted around 20 minutes. This also tasted EXCELLENT the next day. This tea is great for re-steeping.
So, basically, 4 teaspoons leaves + 2 teaspoons rock sugar + lengthy steeping + chill overnight = Delicious iced tea! Assuming I can replicate this recipe in the future and it continues to taste delicious, this will probably be my only update about this tea. (Although if I try it another way—I’m thinking about cold-brewing it—I’ll update with that.)
