Fruit Teas - refresh and revitalise

There is nothing quite as refreshingly good as Fruit Tea. Your sense of smell is hit first which in turn gets your tastebuds ready for the fruity flavour hit.

Hot or cold, fruit teas are a wonderful addition to your tea menu. Have you tasted fruit teas of lemon, peach, orange, mango, passionfruit, blackberry, grapefruit, apple, lime and the rest.

Apart from the amazing fruity flavours, fruit teas lack caffeine which has given them kudos in the area of good health. Ice cold fruit teas are an excellent alternative to soft drinks [and a bit of fizz can also be added];

“The other major advantage of naturally having no caffeine is that doctors recommend that people don’t have more than four caffeine based drinks per day as this can lead to mal-absorption of vitamins and high blood pressure.


As of yet, we haven’t even touched on the taste; there is surely a type of fruit or herbal tea to suit everyone: blueberry, raspberry, lemon, strawberry, and orange for the fruits, and chamomile, green, peppermint for the herbal types. And this is just the beginning! There are literally hundreds of different fruit tea infusions, and it is easy enough to mix your bags together to create your ideal taste.”

One of my favourite fruit teas is ginger and lemon – this is wonderful hot or cold. You can either mix your own by blending the teas with an infuser or buy some wonderful tea bags. There are so many fruit teas available commercially; you owe it to yourself to try them all!

You can make your own fruit teas by using dried fruits purchased from your local health food shop. Fruits to place in your infuser [not necessarily all together] could include: citrus peel [orange, lemon, grapefruit, lime]; dried apple, mango or peach; leaves of mint, spearmint; dried berries – especially strawberries, blackberries and raspberries. You can choose to add some regular tea leaves to your infusion. I usually add a darker leaf for berry teas and green tea base to citrus infusions.

For a refreshing summer fruit tea try:
Ingredients (serves 4)
• 2 cups lemonade
• 2 peach and mango tea bags
• 2 cups boiling water
• 2 cups pineapple juice, chilled
• 1 cup orange juice, chilled
• 125g strawberries, hulled, finely diced
Method
1. Pour lemonade into a jug. Cover and freeze for 2 to 3 hours or until semi-frozen.
2. Place tea bags in a heatproof jug. Pour over boiling water. Brew for 5 minutes. Discard tea bags. Allow tea to cool.
3. Pour tea into a large jug. Add pineapple juice, orange juice, semi-frozen lemonade and strawberries. Serve.

Or check out mom’s [not mine] old fruit tea recipes
• Rhubarb Iced Tea Drink
• Strawberry and Black Currant Tea
• Raisin Tea Drink
• Lemon Tea à La Russe, Russian Lemon Tea
• Iced Lemon Tea Drink
• Orange Iced Tea with Lemon And Ice Cream

Fruit teas are a wonderful way to introduce tea drinking to kids. Kids love fruit flavours and what better way to combine their favourite fruit flavour with the infusion into a fruit tea? A strong fruit infusion should be watered down for young children. They will love the refreshing tastes and for those who find it difficult to get your children to drink water – a fruit tea will change all that! No sugar added and no artificial colours or flavours full of vitamin C and important minerals.