Green Tea Summer cooler with Sweet Basil and Lemon

Summer is here. And so are the coolers. The temperature is already hovering around 30C in Bangalore and 'working from home' is not making it any easier to deal with the onset of summer. If I could, I would drink beer for lunch and dinner but I want my lungs to go on for at least 20 more years. That rules out the possibility of dousing the summer heat but there are always these coolers. Just a little quick thinking and innovation can bring to table a variety of coolers.

When I was in Varanasi  recently, I drank a green tea, mint cooler and quite liked it. I did not waste time to try it out at home as soon as I came back. I brewed some green tea and infused some herbs and made this cooler. I used the green tea leaves to make a pickle but that story can wait for another post!

Here is a very simple recipe of a green tea cooler. It is healthy, refreshing and a thirst quencher like no other. Again, if I could, I would use it to make cocktails by adding a dash of gin or vodka to it. I haven't tried that but you could. And let me know how that went.

Green Tea Cooler

Ingredients: (makes 4 glasses)
Green Tea - 2 bags
Water - 4 glasses
Lime - 1
Honey - 2 teaspoons
Sweet basil leaves - a bunch

Summer Cooler

Here is how you make it:

Boil water and brew green tea
Drain the tea leaves and refrigerate the brewed tea after it has cooled down sufficiently for a few hours and after adding the bunch of sweet basil leaves and squeezing the lemon
Take it out, pour it into serving glasses and enjoy!

Green Tea Cooler

Note: If sweet basil is hard to come by, just replace it with mint. You can also add / reduce the sweetness by stepping up / down honey.