Calling All Iced Tea Lovers: Enter The Ultimate Recipe Challenge!
Calling All Iced Tea Lovers: Enter The Ultimate Recipe Challenge!
Open call for the best homemade iced tea recipe from scratch.
Dear reader,
June is National Iced Tea Month, and as cliche as it is, I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than having an iced tea recipe contest.
Do you have a unique or special iced tea recipe? Send in your best killer iced tea recipe. And by “killer,” I mean one that makes your taste buds ache for more. It can be anything from Sweet Tea to an Iced Morrocan Mint. Arnold Palmer with a twist, anyone? How about a cold brewed tea?
The contest is open to all subscribers throughout June, and winners will be posted in July. If all goes well, I will pick three winning recipes to replicate and post the results, along with your Substack publication name, to my 3,500+ newsletter subscribers.
Creating recipes is a form of artistic expression, and I see so many creative people here on Substack. Creativity is how we express ourselves and share a part of who we are with others.
Who am I to judge?
Well, it just so happens I have a little bit of experience in the iced tea recipe space. Tea is a healthy little beverage, but bottled tea — not so much. In 2009, I set out to make a healthier bottled tea.
I was disappointed with the commercially produced and artificially flavored bottled teas with powders and colorings, so I made real bottled iced tea. I created a natural bottled tea freshly brewed from premium tea leaves and bottled immediately afterward.
After a year of research and development, I created MaryAnna's Tea, placing my first bottled tea on retail shelves in 2010. The more I researched tea, the more I fell in love with specialty tea. With this, I started my artisan-crafted tea business, a venture in which I challenged myself to make the best bottled iced tea on the market.
In 2012, my first flavor, Summer Sweet Tea, came in First Place at the North American Tea Championships. In 2013 & 2014, my Tea & Lemonade placed third at the North American Tea Championships.
Professional tea masters and chefs judge the tea championships. Upon entering, I was up against many well-known national ready-to-drink tea brands (you know who they are) and placed my iced tea ahead of them!
(Unfortunately, the worldwide Covid pandemic shutdown ended many small businesses, including my bottled tea business.)
But I still love iced tea and make it almost daily. I don’t buy bottled teas. That venture was an eye-opening look into processed foods—that’s a story for another post.
How to enter
Today, I'm inviting you to submit your iced tea recipe. Please don’t be intimidated — this is just for fun and community!
I will choose three recipes to feature in a future post, which I will share with my 3,500+ subscribers.
If you'd like, please also include your Substack publication link so I can help draw more attention to you and your recipe if you're selected.
I welcome all forms of iced tea, whether classic, a unique twist, or family recipe. The only requirement is that it be a from-scratch recipe—no pre-packaged iced teas. If you have a tea brand preference, please include it (i.e., not all Earl Grey teas are the same).
Do you have an iced tea loving friend? Please restack or share this post.
**Note: To submit your recipe, you must be a Steeped Stories subscriber; submission details are below.
To submit your recipe:
❤️ Please like this post AND
Post your recipe in the comments below, where others can see and comment OR
If you want to keep it private, send your recipe (and your Substack link) to maryannrollano@substack.com.
I can't wait to try all of your recipes. Let’s get brewing!
Drink tea and be well ♡,
Mary Ann