How to Make and Use Tea Syrup

If you cherish a fragrant cup of hot green tea, you might enjoy adding its fresh taste to other foods. You'll find that the grassy, mildly floral flavor of green tea pairs well with many dishes, adding a sophisticated note to your cooking. The best way to add green tea to other foods is with simple syrup. Not only does this versatile syrup contribute a subtle, complex flavor to foods, it also has all the antioxidants of brewed tea.

Making simple syrup is just as easy as the name suggests. For the best results, use a mild green tea. If you have a recipe in mind, you can match a flavored green tea to the food you're making.

Ingredients

• 1 cup of water
• 4 infuser tea bags of your favorite Revolution Green Tea flavor
• 1 cup of sugar

How to Make Your Tea Syrup

1.  Bring your 1 cup of water to boil on the stove. Once boiling, remove from heat and add your 4 infuser tea bags, infuse for 3-4 minutes.
2.  Remove the infuser tea bags and place the pot back on the heat source and bring to a slow boil.
3.  Once at a slow boil, slowly add the 1 cup of sugar, stirring constantly to ensure it's all dissolved, 2-3 minutes.
4.  Once all the sugar is dissolved, remove from heat and let cool.
5.  You're tea infused syrup can be sealed and stored and refrigerated for up to a month.

Now that you have your green tea simple syrup mixed up, you're ready to explore what this elixir can do. Here are just a few places to start.

Use Like Syrup

This may seem obvious, but green tea syrup can be used anywhere you'd use maple or pancake syrup. Drizzle it over pancakes or waffles. Sliced strawberries that have been macerated in green tea syrup make a beautiful, juicy, jewel-toned topping anywhere you would use a fruit sauce, such as crepes or yogurt. Sliced almonds simmered in green tea syrup make a nutty, lightly sweet topping for oatmeal.

Add a Green Tea Note to Baking

A great way to layer the fresh flavor of green tea on baked goods is by using it to make a glaze. Citrus cakes and cookies pair particularly well with its fresh, grassy notes. Whisk simple syrup into powdered sugar to make a pourable glaze, then drape it over cakes, muffins, or cookies to give them a subtle hint of green tea.

You can also replace some of the liquid in baked goods with green tea simple syrup to lightly perfume them with green tea. People may not even be able to identify the flavor, but it adds a depth to the finished taste. Be sure to reduce the sweetener to compensate for extra sugar.

Fresh Frozen Treats

Use green tea syrup as the sweetener in a custard, then freeze in molds to make creamy ice pops.

To make a fruit granita, sweeten two cups of fruit puree to taste (a delicious choice is honeydew), then freeze in a 9-inch square pan. When it's just barely frozen, scrape with a fork until you have fluffy ice crystals.

A classic use for green tea syrup is to drizzle it over shaved ice for a refreshing cold treat.

Brighten Your Beverages

Flavoring drinks may be the easiest way to use green tea syrup. Try stirring a spoonful into sparkling water and then drop in a few lemon slices for a green tea spritzer. Add to fruit smoothies for mild sweetening, plus the all the health benefits of green tea. It makes a wonderful sweetener in lemonade.

Green tea syrup in cocktails is another popular use. Its subtle flavor can be overwhelmed by strong liquors, but it makes a great addition to citrus or fruit flavored cocktails. It goes particularly well with gin or vodka. Green tea mojitos are a bright take on the classic. In colonial times, tea was often added to an alcoholic punch which was a potent mix of liquor, juice, champagne, and a sweetener like green tea syrup.

The best way to explore the many uses of green tea simple syrup is to get in there and start experimenting. There's a whole world of new flavor combinations to try!