Iced Tea Month: peach and ginger iced tea

National Iced Tea Month is in full swing, which is great because the temps are rising here in NoVA. Supposed to be 100 degrees come Thurs, ew. This week's tea concoction was inspired by the Republic of Tea's ginger peach tea. I figured I'd be able to mimic that using actual ginger and peach. Plus, peaches are one of my favorite fruits (see the peach pocket pies and peach salad recipes), so here's another way to use them.

Here's a nice recipe you can make all year round, even when fresh peaches aren't available. I also used vanilla sugar to give it a nice mellow note, and because vanilla makes everything better, lol, but it's not too sweet. I'd like to hit the farmers market soon and try this again with fresh peaches, too. In any case, this is a very mild, light drink.

Peach and Ginger Tea

adapted from Emeril and Food Network

6 C water

2" section of ginger, peeled and sliced

1/3 C vanilla sugar

8 green tea bags

1 can no sugar added peach slices

Combine first 3 ingredients in a pot and heat until small bubble start to form and water starts to steam. Add tea bags and steep for 13 minutes. In the mean time, pour the peaches and juice into a blender and blend until fine. Remove the ginger from the tea, then add the peaches to the tea. Refrigerate until cold.

If you don't like the bits of peach, feel free to strain it out after it's cooled so the flavors have time to blend.