This turns a strong brew of Everyday Brew into a lemon cordial you can bottle and keep: the tea gives it body and a gentle tannin backbone, while lemon and sugar do the rest. One batch fills a couple of bottles, so there's one for the fridge and one to label and give away.
Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for the Everyday Brew Lemon Cordial recipe. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/recipes/black-tea/everyday-brew-lemon-cordial/
It uses Teapigs Everyday Brew, a brisk whole-leaf Black Tea. About twenty minutes, and it makes roughly a litre.
You'll need
- 10 Teapigs Everyday Brew tea temples
- 800ml water
- 500g caster sugar
- Juice and pared zest of 2 lemons
- 2 cinnamon sticks, optional
- 2 sterilised 500ml bottles with tight lids
Method
- Sterilise the bottles: wash, then dry in a low oven for 10 minutes, or run through a hot dishwasher cycle. Clean bottles are what make it keep.
- Boil the water, drop in the 10 tea temples and steep 4 minutes only, then lift them out so the bulk batch does not turn bitter.
- Return the brew to the pan with the sugar, lemon zest and optional cinnamon and stir over low heat until the sugar fully dissolves.
- Simmer gently 6 to 8 minutes to a light syrup, stir in the lemon juice, then take off the heat and cool slightly.
- Strain out the zest and cinnamon and funnel the hot base into the sterilised bottles, leaving a small gap, then seal.
- Dilute 1 part base to 4 parts hot or soda water. Sealed and unopened it keeps a month in the fridge; opened, two weeks. Label gift bottles with the date and dilution.
Want the background, not just the brew?
Brewed with: Teapigs Everyday Brew, 50 Tea Bags 125g
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