Iced tea in New Zealand has a complicated history. For years it meant a bottle of something cloyingly sweet from a service station fridge. What T2's iced tea range offers is genuinely different: real tea, brewed properly and served cold, with the same flavour complexity you get from a hot cup but with a brightness and freshness that is its own thing entirely.
New Zealand summers are warm enough to make a hot brew feel like the wrong choice for months at a time. Northland, Auckland, Hawke's Bay, and Marlborough regularly reach 30 degrees and above. Iced tea made from quality fruit blends or matcha is a legitimate answer to that problem, and once you have made it at home a few times it becomes one of those things you wonder how you went without.
Two ways to make iced tea
The standard method is to brew the tea hot, stronger than you normally would to account for dilution from the ice, then pour it over a full glass of ice and let it cool quickly. A brew that is one and a half to two times stronger than your usual strength will come out balanced once the ice melts into it. Most of the loose leaf fruit blends in this range work well this way: Fruitalicious, Packs a Peach, Strawberries and Cream, and Pumping Pomegranate are all vivid enough to hold their character cold. Learn more about brewing iced teas here.
Cold brew is the alternative for those who prefer to skip the heat entirely. Place the cold brew tea bags in a jug of cold or room-temperature water, put it in the fridge overnight or for a minimum of six to eight hours, and what comes out is clean, naturally sweet, and without any of the bitterness that sometimes comes from hot brewing. Peachberry and Mango Mint are the two cold brew specific bags in the range, and both are caffeine-free which makes them suitable for all-day drinking.
Iced matcha: what it is and how it works
Iced matcha has become a fixture in New Zealand cafés over the past few years, and making it at home is more straightforward than the café price suggests. Whisk your matcha powder with a small amount of warm water first to create a smooth paste, then pour it over ice and add cold water or your preferred milk. The result is layered, visually striking, and noticeably more satisfying than a matcha drink made by simply shaking powder into cold liquid.
The Peach Matcha and White Choc Matcha powders take this further. Both are designed specifically for iced creations, bringing a different character to the ritual. Peach Matcha is bright and juicy, works great as a a Peach Spritz. White Choc Matcha is richer and more indulgent, the kind of thing that belongs on a summer afternoon martini rather than a Monday morning commute.
For a crowd
Iced tea scales well. A 100g loose leaf cube makes enough for multiple litres of iced tea, and brewing a large batch the night before and storing it in the fridge means you can serve something genuinely impressive at a weekend barbecue or an afternoon with friends without much effort. The 250g refill sizes and our 1.75l Jug-a-Lot are worth considering if you are doing this regularly over summer.
