Long gone are the days of tea being a cold-weather beverage. The popularity of fresh, high-quality iced tea has wonderfully brought the business of tea to a robust year-round endeavor.

Fresh brewing is the way to go – brew enough for a few hours to keep the flavors fresh and clients happy. Old tea is off-putting and potentially harmful if it’s a few days old.

Keep your brewing equipment clean – Frequent cleaning of your brewers, infuser baskets, and water dispensers will ensure the best possible brews and prevent flavor contamination that accumulates over time with tannin and flavor residue build up. Train your staff to be diligent!

Invest in an ice machine – Having ice on hand is a game changer for a tea business. You can brew hot in small batches and ice on the fly. You can amaze your clients by ice brewing notoriously temperature sensitive teas like Japanese Gyokuro for a whole new green tea experience. Letting the ice slowly melt through the tea leaves, draws out unique flavors and zero astringency. Give it a try!

Fresh loose-leaf tea – Of course, when you start with superior leaves you get a superior product. Opt for fruity flavored teas and herbal blends and stay on trend with local harvests such as berries, peaches, and cherries!

Update your tea descriptions – Subtle tweaks to your tea descriptions can enhance sales by playing into the summer/warm weather vibe. Use descriptors like refreshing, juicy, summers, breezy, and cooler wherever you can. Hot days will have clients connecting to these words when they walk in the door and out of the summer sun.

Garnish – If you are serving tea, fun, flavorful garnishes add greatly to the appeal of the tea drinks that you offer. Consider, herbs such as fresh rosemary, basil, mint, and dried lavender. Fruit wedges, citrus twists, cucumber slices, and maraschino cherries add a fresh fruity vibe. You can even rim glasses with ground spices, sugar or fancy salts for the ultimate replenishers.

With a little creativity and a bit of adjustment, you can have a thriving iced tea business throughout the warm weather season. If you prefer the ease of pre-measured iced tea pouches or pre-measured loose, we have those too! Serving and selling iced tea has never been easier!