The Loose-Leaf Tea You Should Never Use For Brewing Iced Tea

No matter how you make it — sweet, with a splash of lemon, cold brewed, or hot then chilled — homemade iced tea is a great pick-me-up on a hot afternoon. For a strong tea flavor, one excellent hack is to use ice made from tea for your iced tea. You can play around with many ingredients to find your perfect recipe, but there is one you should always avoid: old tea leaves.

In an interview with the Daily Meal, Jordan G.L. Hardin, Director of Food & Beverage for Alfred, shares that "your tea is only ever going to be as good as the ingredient — don't use super old, dusty tea you've had sitting in your back cupboard that was a gift from a friend 3 years ago in a plastic bag." While, unless there is mold on the tea, old tea isn't dangerous to drink, but the majority of the flavor and nutritional value will be gone. Thankfully, Jordan has some tips on how to find high-quality, fresh tea leaves.

Jordan stresses that the best ingredient is simply high-quality tea leaves. "Use tea from a quality vendor, who has an origin associated with that tea," he tells the Daily Meal. This means looking for shops online or near you associated with places like China, Japan, India, or any of the original tea-growing countries. The busier the shop, the fresher the leaves, since they will have to restock regularly instead of letting products sit on the shelf waiting to be purchased. Additionally, shops that have connections to the farms they buy from will have access to higher-quality teas that are ethically produced.

The variety of tea doesn't matter. There are many great varieties of tea available that you can discover if you're a beginner, and the best one for iced tea is the one you prefer! Try green, black, white, oolong, and more to find what type of iced tea you prefer. You can play around with additives, like dried herbs, to create flavors you can't find in bottled iced teas. As long as the quality of the leaves is good, you're going to have something special and delicious!