June is National Iced Tea Month, and there’s a new bottled tea in town: True Brew. Made in Texas, where people like their iced tea sweet, the line offers sweetened varieties, with unsweetened black, green and white teas for purists.
100% Organic varieties include Unsweetened Black, White and Green Teas.
Organic varieties include sweetened Apple White, Cranberry Orange, Green, Hibiscus, Peach White, Strawberry White, Sweet and White Teas. (See the difference between 100% Organic and Organic.)
The unsweetened teas have zero calories; the sweetened teas, which employ organic cane sugar, have between 64 and 72 calories per 8-ounce serving.
While we normally drink our tea unsweetened—iced or hot—to enjoy the flavor of the quality tea we buy, our favorite of the line was the Sweet Tea. It tasted exactly like what one would brew at home and drink with two teaspoons of sugar (in fact, it tasted exactly like the iced tea we made through our teens and college years, before we started to drink our tea and coffee black).
The Unsweetened Green Tea was the third place winner in the Iced Tea Class at the recent 2009 World Tea Championships (first place went to ITO EN’s Oi Ocha Dark [a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week], second place to Wegman’s Just Tea—Green, a private label brand that is brewed for them by someone—we’ll have to track down who). Green tea connoisseurs will like it—it has the vegetal flavors of a complex green tea.
The flavor profiles are very different from Honest Tea, the first organic bottled tea line. Unlike Honest Tea, the entire True Brew line is packaged in a PET bottle (the only resin [plastic] approved by the FDA to have post-consumer recycled content). Organic tea drinkers seeking an alternative should give it a try.
There’s another reason everyone who drinks bottled tea should take a look at True Brew: the higher antioxidant content. The company claims a polyphenol count that is higher than some competitors. Based on a Men’s Health article that compared green tea varieties from Harney and Sons, Lipton, Tazo and Snapple, True Brew has more polyphenols per bottle. True Brew actually lists the polyphenol count on the bottle, although somewhat strangely, the number stated is the amount per liter instead of how much is in the 16-ounce bottle.
The price is right: True Brew has been retailing at $1.00 per bottle! Find store locations at TrueBrew.com.
It’s hard to resist this rich, gooey Snickers pie!
There’s nothing to snicker with this recipe, unless you find yourself unable to stop eating it and friends and family post You Tube videos of you, snickered and crumb-faced. A Snickers Pie is a cream pie made of cream cheese, peanut butter and chopped Snickers bars on a chocolate crumb crust. The top is typically decorated with chopped Snickers Bars and sometimes, caramel and /or chocolate drizzles. There are many variations of the recipe; a Snickers ice cream pie can be made with vanilla or peanut butter ice cream, along with the chopped Snickers bars. While this recipe from New York City’s famed Magnolia Bakery doesn’t include them, some bakers like to mix chopped roasted peanuts into the recipe as well. Try your own variations, and see our Pie & Pastry Glossary for a bakery full of pie and pastry types.
No one tells us they’re going to Paris anymore, because they know we’ll beg them to bring back two boxes of macaroons from Ladurée, the international temple of macaroon holiness. The great success of Ladurée’s macarons is threefold:
The tenderness of the meringue.
The quality of the fillings.
The vivid flavors and colors.
So, if you love macaroons, put a visit to Paris’s Ladurée on the “100 Things To Do Before You Die” list. Until then, try your hand at making the elaborate macaroons at home with their recipe.
Think all macaroons are the same? Learn why “macaroon” means different things to different people in our History of Macaroons.
Create an easy but elegant dessert by filling your champagne glasses (or wine goblets) with 3 or 4 different flavors and colors of sorbet. Even supermarket brands taste good, but if you can, buy specialty brands in flavors like apple mint or pear cognac. It’s all the more special for your guests. For something really special, get the real champagne and wine sorbets from Wine Cellar Sorbets—read our review. Serve with a fancy cookie and garnish with something interesting—a blackberry or a sprig of rosemary. Note: As you’re scooping sorbet for six or eight people, things can start to melt down. You can scoop balls in advance and keep them on covered plates or in containers in the freezer; then assemble quickly in the goblets and serve. Don’t pre-assemble and freeze in the goblets because moisture will condense on the glass when you remove them to room temperature.
Do you carry your own grocery tote to the supermarket instead of taking bags that just get thrown away? Good for you! Another way for environmentally-concerned people to save the environment: reusable produce bags let you BYO to the supermarket, so you aren’t throwing plastic into the landfill every time you buy lemons, apples and cucumbers.
The bags are made of fine mesh with a drawstring, are machine washable and virtually weightless. They’re see through, so cashiers can scan or input the code. Using these three bags just once a week can save as many as 150 plastic bags per year!
Go green with reusable produce bags.
Sold in sets of three bags for $7.50, two of the bags measure 11.5 X 14.25 inches and one is 14 X 16.25 inches to hold large items. Get some for yourself and note them on your holiday list as a good, inexpensive green-conscious gift. At 3Bags.com.
