Lemon Tea Granita
Flaky Sicilian style shaved ice built on strong lemon tea, sweetened and sharpened with juice and zest.
Granita is Sicily's answer to a sweltering afternoon: a bowl of coarse, flaky ice you rake up with a fork rather than churn like ice cream. Lemon tea makes a lovely base for it, because the brew already carries the citrus and just enough tannin to stop the whole thing tasting like flavoured water.
Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for the Lemon Tea Granita recipe. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/recipes/frozen pops for kids/lemon tea granita/
The method is forgiving. Brew strong, sweeten while warm, sharpen with juice and zest, then freeze and drag a fork through it every twenty minutes. You finish with around 600ml, enough for six small scoops, and the only real skill is remembering to go back and stir.
You'll need
- 3 tea bags of Cotterley Lemon Tea
- 400ml freshly drawn water at 100C, just off the boil
- 70g caster sugar
- 60ml fresh lemon juice
- Zest of 1 fresh lemon, finely grated
- 1 shallow 1L freezer proof container with lid
- 1 small saucepan and a saucer for covering
- 1 fork for stirring
Method
- Steep 3 tea bags in 400ml of just boiled water for 5 minutes, covered with a saucer to hold the heat.
- Lift out the bags and stir the caster sugar into the hot tea until it has fully dissolved.
- Stand the pan in cold water for about 5 minutes to bring the syrup down to room temperature.
- Stir through the lemon juice and the grated zest.
- Pour into a shallow freezer proof container, no deeper than a couple of centimetres.
- Freeze for an hour, then drag a fork right through to break up the first ice crystals.
- Keep forking every 20 minutes for two more rounds, roughly two hours in all, until the ice is loose and flaky.
- Scoop into chilled bowls and serve straight away; granita softens fast once it leaves the freezer.
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Brewed with: Cotterley Lemon Tea, 25 Tea Bags 40g
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