Peaches! Peaches! A Summer Peach Iced Tea!

Yesterday morning while preparing lunch for my friends coming later in the day, I’d got a call from my girlfriend Sandra about my iced tea!

She had attempted to make the ice tea and her daughter told her…”This doesn’t taste like Ms. Letia’s!”

Not to say in the least that my girlfriend was just a little annoyed with the fact, her daughter wasn’t appreciative of her attempt!  With my gentle reply, I said keep the tea you’ve already made, you can incorporate it in the the new batch, you are going to make with me!  For luckily I was just in the process of making some and brought her through step by step!   So while as I was making the tea, I said let me also share with you all too! 🙂

1. You can use freshly brewed tea (green, jasmine, Lipton, etc.) or any Ice Tea or even lemonade mix; whatever you prefer!  In a separate pitcher make your tea the way you like it! If you are brewing your tea, the tea should be very well cooled before adding to the peaches! To sweeten the tea, you can use honey, sugar, agave or if you don’t like a sweetened tea; nothing at all!  However, if you are using a mix, read the instructions on how much to use based on the size of your serving pitcher.  What I usually do to make it easier, is to make enough tea to add to the serving pitcher or two, throughout the lunch.
2. Take 5 ripe peaches (you will know that they are ripe, because of the wonderful smell that they give off)!  If not ripe, using the old fashion trick – place them in a paper bag about two days before you are to use them – that will get them ripe!
3. Wash the peaches very gently under cold water and pat dry softly with a paper towel, you want to show the pretty skin!
4. Then take a clear serving pitcher and now begin adding your peaches:

• I have the pitcher with the funnel in the middle where you put ice (I freeze it) to keep the pitcher cold without compromising the beverage with added water from the ice! You can place the funnel in the freezer the day before you are going to make the peach tea! Otherwise ice cubes to chill per serving, is just fine!
• You want to cut the peaches in wedges, showing the beautiful red color left from separating the peach from the peach pit! With a fork, take each peach wedge and gently make a perforation and place in pitcher. This will allow the peaches to begin to extract their juices.  Let the wedges sit a bit, while you clean up a bit!

Now add your ready-made tea to your serving pitcher and stir about three to four times lightly, this will allow the juice from the peaches to incorporate with the tea! Let sit for about 5 minutes and then serve!

That’s it! Now once the iced tea is gone and you are left with just the peaches, they can be eaten too! Or you can take a mason jar and add the peaches with your favorite vodka to sit for about a month! This will make a nice peach tea liqueur for a cocktail, like a Peach Tea Martini or Peach Tea Amaretto sour…be creative! Or if you can’t wait that dog-gone long, muddle the peaches for your cocktail drink!!!!! 🙂

Oh! And my girlfriend’s daughter was very happy with the walk through!  LOL!!!!!

Later that day, the lunch I’d prepared was great too!  Everyone enjoyed themselves, can you tell I’m really enjoying the summer!

The whole idea is, if you love peaches…..it is best to enjoy them while they’re in season by either making  a wonderful summer iced tea drink, cocktail or just have the fruit alone <I just thought of vanilla bean ice cream; heading towards the freezer now! Yummy>!!!!!!

Related articles

• Iced Peach Tea Cocktail (teasherpa.wordpress.com)
• Sweetening Your Lunch – With Donut Peaches & Apricots (eating925.wordpress.com)
• Check Out Them Peaches! (splitpealandscape.wordpress.com)

Letia 🙂

Pictures by Letia Mitchell LifeStyle &Design ®. Pitchers purchased from Christmas Tree Shops http://www.christmastreeshops.com/.