Iced Blueberry Green Tea

This adventure of mine started as a journey to eliminate prepackaged and processed foods, but I never really put much thought into what we were drinking. As part of my weight loss journey, I gave up most caffeine. I've traded coffee and diet soda for green tea. I'm not a big fan of hot beverages, so I've been drinking iced green tea. However, I've been buying it bottled at the store. This week I decided to take the time to experiment and make my own. Not only was it much more delicious than the tea I've been buying in the store, I know what is in it AND instead of $1.89 for a 16oz bottle, it cost me a total of $3.50 to make an entire gallon of this tea!

I hope that you all enjoy this as much as I did!

Iced Blueberry Green Tea

Tea Ingredients:

• Enough tea bags to make 1 gallon of tea (depends on the brand of tea - mine took 16 bags)
• 4 Cups boiling water
• 10 Cups Cold Water
• Juice from 1 Lemon

Syrup Ingredients:

• 1 Pint Blueberries
• 2 Cups Sugar
• 2 Cups Water

Directions:

Boil 4 Cups of water. Remove from heat and add tea bags - let steep for 10-15 minutes depending on how strong you like your tea.

While tea is brewing, make syrup. Add all syrup ingredients to a medium sized pot and bring to a boil over medium heat.
Cook until blueberries burst open and sugar has melted. Be sure not to turn the heat up too high so the sugar doesn't burn to the bottom of the pan. Strain the syrup over a large bowl to remove blueberry skins.



Stir in the juice of 1 lemon.



Remove tea bags from the water and pour tea into a 1-gallon pitcher. Add blueberry syrup to the pitcher and stir until well combined. Add the 10 cups of cold water and stir. Place pitcher in the fridge for a few hours to completely cool the tea. Serve with a fresh lemon wedge.