It's still early spring but we are having a summer-like weather. Today the temperature will go as high as 80 degrees. I'm just starting my vegetable garden and staying outside clearing the yard of winter debris in this hot weather makes me exhausted and I get dehydrated quickly. But it's the perfect time to make gallons of sweet iced tea. Not just any iced tea but similar to the one served in restaurants in the Philippines, I think in the late 70s or maybe early 80s, called Butterfly iced tea. The iced tea was so popular the people who owned the restaurant and the drink started selling concentrate in gallon jugs at the supermarkets. But the drink disappeared just like that, never to be heard of again, it's a mystery. I read that somebody interviewed the owners who for some reason would not even talk about the ice tea and its demise. Odd.
Anyway, I have been making an iced tea drink that tastes similar to the Butterfly iced tea. The not-so-secret ingredient is maple extract. The flavor becomes unique when combined with the juice of the Philippine lime, calamansi, although lemon juice is equally wonderful with the maple flavor. Maple sugar is sold at most grocery stores but it is super expensive and maple flavoring is available at
King Arthur Flour online and catalog.
A year ago I discovered an unopened jar of maple syrup that has expired. I don't really understand why it has an expiration date, it's sugar syrup, why should it go bad. Instead of throwing it away I boiled the syrup down, dried the crystals, broke them into large chunks, and that's what I use together with raw sugar to sweeten the iced tea. Yum. I could finish a gallon of this stuff in a day.:-)
Maple Sugar Iced Tea
makes approximately 4 cups
3 English breakfast tea bags
2 cups boiling water
maple sugar or syrup, to taste
raw sugar (demerara), to taste
juice of 1 lemon, strained
1 cup ice cold water
1½ cups ice
- Brew tea in boiling water. Discard bags. Add maple syrup or sugar and raw sugar until dissolved. Add the juice, water, and ice. Enjoy.
