Brewing tea: How to brew tea properly – with a delicious recipe for iced tea

Brewing tea – To enjoy a delicious cup of tea in your rooftop tent, you first need to boil it.
Especially with “real tea”, i.e. green and black tea, you should pay attention to a few things.
For example, the water quality is crucial to ensure that your tea is particularly tasty.
So that you don’t have to miss out on your taste experience when camping, you can find more tips on how to brew tea here.
Tips: At the very end, you can find out how to make delicious iced tea with the whole family in summer.

Camping Ratgeber:

Buy & store: How to take tea with you on vacation

You can buy tea as loose tea leaves or directly in bags.
These variants differ in taste, preparation and handling.
Tea bags are easier to handle and transport.
This means you don’t have to go without your favorite tea when you’re on a camping vacation.
But you can also take loose tea with you in an airtight tin.
The tea should not be exposed to light, as this can change the taste.
Tea connoisseurs often say that loose tea tastes particularly good.
However, you should not store it next to strong-smelling spices, as these can change the taste.

This is important when transporting tea:

Simple: Tea bags
Otherwise: Airtight can
No light on the tea
Not next to spices

Cooking with bags, sieves & loose tea: here’s how!

To be able to drink your tea, you need to boil it.
You can boil it in different ways.
You only need to pour boiling water over a tea bag.
You can put loose tea in a tea strainer.
However, you should make sure that the tea strainer is not too small, otherwise the flavor cannot fully develop.
You can also put your tea leaves directly into the teapot.
Then you should pour the tea from the pot through a sieve so that you don’t have the individual pieces of leaf in your cup.
You can boil the tea in this way:

Tea bags in boiling water
Pour water over the tea strainer
Tea leaves in a teapot with water

Making tea is also possible when camping.
Whether pot, espresso maker or percolator, you can find more tips here:

Tea stove

Those are the basics for now.
But making tea can also be a process that rewards you with a delicious result.
If you want to know how to make tea properly so you can experience the full flavor, learn more here:

Fresh tea: dosage, water quality & brewing time

If you want particularly fresh tea, you should make sure that the harvest is from this year.
To ensure that your tea is still fully effective, there are a few things you should bear in mind when preparing it.
The dosage, water quality and brewing time are very important.
You can find out here what the effects of each type of tea can be:

Tea effect

Dosage: grams of tea leaves & size of teapot

The more grams of tea leaves you use, the more flavor your tea will have.
However, too much can be bitter.
You should therefore pay close attention to the sales information.
You should also prefer a small teapot to a larger one, as this allows you to control the taste better.
You should bear this in mind when dosing:

The more grams of tea, the more flavor
Smaller teapot is better than a large one

Water quality: temperature, hardness & in nature

Most teas are infused with boiling water.
Except for green tea, where a water temperature of 60 to 80 degrees is usually sufficient.
However, even with other types of tea, it can’t hurt to let the water cool down for a few minutes.
This prevents some of the flavors from evaporating.
You should also only boil it once; water that has been boiled several times has a lower oxygen content and can make your tea taste bland.
In addition to the temperature, the “hardness” of the water is also a factor, especially with green tea.
This should have a value of around 7.
This value primarily takes into account the lime content of the water.
Hardness level 7 is considered “soft water” and has a lower lime content.
The supply company can usually provide information about this.
Filters are also available for the tap water connection to achieve this water quality.
In the case of wild water in regions with little sand and limestone, you are lucky that it is generally softer.
Rainwater is also generally rather soft.
In this case, you can simply treat the water with a drinking water filter.
Here’s everything you need to know when you boil your tea with water:

Water temperature not too hot
Boil water only once
Low lime content in the water
Rainwater = generally less limescale

Brewing time: special features of green, black & herbal tea

After boiling, you should leave the tea to infuse.
To do this, leave the tea bag or tea strainer in the water.
This allows the flavor to “infuse” into the water, hence the term “steep”.
Different types of tea require different amounts of time.
You can find a rough overview here, otherwise many packages also have more detailed information or you can ask in your trusted specialist shop.
Black and green teas should generally not steep for longer than three minutes.
Green tea should be steeped for two minutes.
Steeping black tea for longer can reduce the stimulating effect, but can also upset the stomach.
Herbal teas, on the other hand, can be left to infuse for longer.
Five to ten minutes should produce the desired result.
You should bear this in mind when steeping your tea:

Observe packaging (or ask tea merchant)
Black & green tea: no longer than 3 minutes
Herbal teas: 5-10 minutes for good results

At the very end, you can sweeten your tea with sugar or fresh honey.
Or you can make iced tea as described here:

Sweet freshness: iced tea for warm days & the beach

Special tip for the warm season and with children: Make your own iced tea!
It’s best to use black tea for this.
Once you have brewed it as we have explained above, you should not leave it to infuse for long and cool it down directly with ice cubes or in the camping cool box.
For a fruity summer flavor, you can add fruit puree, syrup, boiled peaches or fruit juice – or another fruit tea.
To make the tea nice and sweet, you can stir in a little sugar if you like (recommended: 4 tbsp depending on the quantity).
This is a quick way to make iced tea for warm days:

Brew black tea
Cool down with ice cubes / cool box
For sweetness: stir in about 4 teaspoons of sugar
Optional for a summery taste:

- Fruit puree
- Syrup
- Boiled peaches
- Fruit juice
- Fruit tea

More about tea: More tips for campers

Have you acquired a taste for tea?
Here you can find out more about tea, especially on the campsite and on the road.

Coffee vs. tea

As a rule, people prefer one drink or the other.
But even if you’re a convinced coffee drinker, it’s worth trying tea or vice versa.
Both are popular and both have their advantages.
You can find out exactly what they are here: