What Is Hard Iced Tea?
Hard iced tea is all the rave right now, as more and more beverage companies introduce alternative alcohol drinks that serve a broader market. From seltzers to hard kombucha, brewers are getting creative with the outer limits of what can be fermented. The truth is that as long as you have fermentable sugar, you can brew pretty much anything. So, what is hard iced tea?
What Is Hard Iced Tea?
Hard iced tea is a fermented tea that is kept cold. Slightly carbonated, often strong on fruity flavors and subtle in tea flavors, hard iced tea is a huge hit for those looking for a refreshing alcoholic beverage that can be enjoyed on a hot summer day.
Hard iced tea takes on many variations. You can add flavors, raise or lower the alcohol percentage, and include or exclude grain, depending on your preference.
History of Hard Iced Tea
The history of hard iced team, some would say, goes back to the turn of the century, when, in 2001, Boston Beer Company introduced Twisted Tea to the alcoholic beverage market.
Following on the heels of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and Smirnoff Ice, Twisted Tea offered a lemony black tea with a malted beer base. Today, more than 20 years later, it has become the best seller in the flavored malt beverage market.
However, those with a bit of American history knowledge might argue that tea has been made “hard” for centuries in this country. As far back as the 1800s, American have been adding rum and other liquors to their teas to make a tea “punch.”
There are entire volumes written on recipes for hard tea from early colonial times, especially once ice began to be shipped to the hot south from the cooler north.
Sweet tea became a phenomenon in the south, and more than a few regions combined tea with distilled liquor to give their tea a punch. Pun intended.
Still, anyone with an extensive knowledge of the history of tea will tell you that hard iced tea actually goes all the way back to ancient times, in China.
That’s right.
Kombucha is the original hard iced tea and was first created, it is thought, around 200 B.C.
As a result, you can see that hard iced tea is far from a new phenomenon, even if it has taken on a modern spin.
How to Make Hard Iced Tea
Several approaches to hard iced tea exist, and all of them can be made stronger or weaker and can include any additives the brewer chooses.
Fermented Tea
The first and most obvious way to make hard iced tea is to ferment tea. Like kombucha, the process involves brewing tea, usually black, but green or white would also do just fine. Black is often the tea of choice because its strong flavor will persist through the brewing process and pair well with most fruits and sweeteners.
First, you would brew your tea. Next, you would add sugar or another fermentable sugar, like honey. Next, you would add yeast.
The kombucha tradition, of course, calls for the addition of, instead of yeast, a SCOBY, which is a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast.
You can go either way, depending on your desired outcome.
Once the tea has been fermented by yeast or SCOBY, you can decide if you want to add frozen fruit or any other sweetener.
Just be mindful that any new sugars are likely going to start up the fermentation process again, giving you a bit of effervescence and a bit more alcohol. If you decide to go ahead anyway, be sure to leave room in your fermentation vessel or bottles for the added carbon dioxide, which could cause your containers to explode.
Beer Base
Many hard iced tea brewers, like Twisted Tea, instead of fermenting the tea with sugar, add a malted barley base to the brewed tea and ferment from there.
Liquid barley malt, dried barley malt, or barley malt syrup will all offer both the thicker, richer texture and mouthfeel of beer and the fermentable sugars required for fermentation.
Note that if you take this route, your beverage will not be grain-free, therefore it will not be gluten-free.
Also be mindful that the flavors will be distinct from those of a fermented tea made more aligned with the kombucha recipe.
Clean Spirit
Finally, you can ferment sugar and then infuse the fermented sugar beverage with tea.
This approach would be something more akin to a hard seltzer and would be much more tea “flavored” than actual hard iced tea.
The process here involves simply boiling sugar and adding yeast once the sugar cools down. You can then clarify the liquid and add tea or infuse the liquid with tea leaves.
Finally, you may want to add back in some sweetener, if you are hoping for a sweeter tea.
Make a Punch
Finally, for those at home simply interested in an iced tea that has a kick, you can recall those old colonial times and mix up a brew of tea and liquor.
Rum, fruit, and even spices can all be great addition to a hard iced tea punch.
Further, it will take almost no time to make it, as opposed to fermenting your own hard iced tea, which could take a couple of weeks for completion.
Summing It All Up
In the end, hard iced tea is typically an alcoholic tea beverage, but the approach to brewing this beverage ranges widely.
There does not seem to be a “best” way to ferment this brew, as each has its own benefits and drawbacks, all of which are subject to the consumer’s preferences.
The bottom line is that as a brewer, you will have to find out what your audience is most craving, and then cater to that, experimenting along the way.
Cheers!
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