A tutorial about how to cold brew green tea with the subtle citric flavor of lemongrass.
Iced tea is a great way to wake up in the mornings. Hot tea is good too, but I only like it when it's cold out. I drank lots of hot tea when I lived in Minnesota during the winters. Now that I live in Hawaii it doesn't really get cold so I prefer iced tea. I don't like to drink too much caffeine so I try to save it for weekend mornings but I still like to try new ways to make it. After posting a lemongrass stir fry recipe I received a comment about how lemongrass tea was also good. That got me thinking, if you can brew lemongrass tea with hot water maybe you can do the same with a cold brew method. So I tried it and it turned out quite good. It had a very subtle lemony/citric flavor and was very refreshing. There are also many claims of health benefits of lemongrass, so if they are true that's just an added bonus.
Take a stalk of lemon grass. How many you use is up to you. I used 3 stalks for 1 quart of tea, but if you want more flavor use more.
Prepare each stalk of lemon grass by cutting it into about 2 inch segments (so that it will fit more easily in a french press). Dispose of the root end.
Peel off a few layers of the tough outer leaves until you get to the more tender center leaves.
Now, bruise the stalks by hitting all over with the back or a knife until they split and separate (this helps to release the flavors). At this point you can mince the stalks for addition to stir fries or curries but for our purpose just leave them whole.
Place all of the prepared lemongrass in a french press along with the tea leaves. I only made 1 quart so I used 4 heaping teaspoons of tea leaves.
Fill the french press with cold water and let it set and steep for about 24 hours.
After 24 hours the tea will be brewed. Push down on the plunger and strain out the delicious lemongrass green tea. You can sweeten as you prefer.
Pour over ice, add a stick of lemongrass and enjoy.
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