Martha Stewart Explains How To Level Up Bottled Iced Tea - Exclusive

Martha Stewart goes by many titles. She's a prolific cookbook author, baker extraordinaire, television host, industry-spanning entrepreneur, and noted friend of Snoop Dogg. Perhaps most importantly, she's the unofficial queen of DIY, which means she puts her own touch on just about everything — especially when it comes to food and drinks. And of course, iced tea is no exception.

In that regard, it's hard to imagine Stewart indulging in iced tea from a bottle when she certainly has the skills and ingredients to make it at home. But for her latest collaboration with Pure Leaf, she's skipping the home-brewing process in favor of a bona fide "Don't Do It Yourself" kit. "Why spend the time making tea, which may or may not take you more time than you have, instead opening up a bottle of Pure Leaf and using that free time to do something else?" Stewart told Daily Meal. Of course, even the tastiest pre-bottled iced tea wouldn't be Martha-approved without a little extra zhuzh. "I don't just drink it out of a bottle," she said.

She let Daily Meal in on her favorite way to level up the drink — a secret as simple as infusing flavorful and aesthetically pleasing ingredients like mint and lemon into ice cubes — as well as how fans can enter to win Pure Leaf kits of their own. 

Back in August 2023, Martha Stewart found herself at the center of a cocktail controversy when she posted photos of herself on Instagram cooling her drink with shards of a literal iceberg plucked from the fjords of Greenland. By all accounts, she has no regrets, as Page Six reported at the time (though, to wit, neither do actual experts on the subject). In that sense, it's no surprise she told Daily Meal that high-quality ice is key to a good glass of iced tea. 

Stewart notes that there's nothing wrong with using crystal-clear cubes in iced tea, but she takes it a few steps further by adding fresh herbs or sections of lemon to ice trays to elevate the drink. "[Pure Leaf tea] is very nice over ice with citrus or mint or whatever you choose in the glass," she told Daily Meal. As fans might expect, Stewart grows citrus trees herself at her New York estate and enjoys the fruits of her labor all winter long. 

Back to her collab with Pure Leaf: Fans can enter to win one of 250 free kits through November 16 by clicking here. Stewart's hand-tended lemons and mint are not included, but the kits do come with plenty of other goodies, including a glass pitcher, a custom ice cube mold, a wooden mixing spoon, and a dried fruit garnish.