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Strawberry Iced Tea is smooth cold brew tea swirled with fresh strawberry syrup and a squeeze of lemon, poured over ice cubes with whole strawberry slices frozen inside so the last sip is as good as the first, and the pitcher I made on a blazing Sunday porch afternoon never saw the refrigerator twice. If pitcher drinks are your summer hosting move, my blueberry lemonade cocktail is the grown up sipper on the same porch.
The strawberry ice cubes are the party trick, they flavor the tea as they melt instead of watering it down.
Strawberry Iced Tea Quick Look
- 🕒 Prep Time: 10 minutes
- 🌡️ Cook Time: 10 minutes
- ⏳ Total Time: 20 minutes
- 🍽️ Serving: 4 servings
- ⚡ Calories: 248kcal
- 🌶️ Flavor Profile: Smooth black tea with jammy strawberry sweetness and a bright lemon finish
- ✋ Difficulty: Easy, it is basically making tea with a five minute strawberry syrup, simpler than my 3 ingredient pink punch
Quick Answer
Steep two cold brew tea bags in 2 quarts of room temperature water with 1 cup of sugar for 5 to 10 minutes. Meanwhile, simmer chopped strawberries with the remaining water and sugar for 10 minutes, strain out the solids while pressing the juice through, and stir in fresh lemon juice. Combine the strawberry syrup with the tea. Freeze some of the tea in ice cube trays with strawberry slices, chill the rest in a pitcher, and serve the cold tea over the strawberry ice cubes.
Jump to:
Why This Recipe Works
Click to see the technique science
- Cold brew bags never turn bitter. They steep smooth at room temperature, so there is no boiling water to pull harsh tannins into the pitcher.
- A real strawberry syrup beats muddled berries. Ten minutes of simmering concentrates the fruit into a jammy syrup that blends into the tea instead of floating as pulp.
- Straining is why it looks so clear. Pressing the cooked berries through a fine mesh strainer keeps all the flavor and leaves the cloudy solids behind.
- Lemon wakes everything up. One fresh squeezed lemon cuts the sweetness and pushes the whole glass toward strawberry lemonade territory.
- Tea ice cubes are the no dilution trick. Freezing the tea itself with strawberry slices inside means melting cubes add flavor, never water.
- Sugar dissolves during the steep. Adding it to the room temperature water with the tea bags means no gritty stirring battle at the end.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- The strawberry ice cubes mean the last glass of the pitcher tastes exactly like the first.
- Real fruit, real tea, and twenty minutes, no powdered mix anywhere in sight.
- It photographs even prettier than my green tea smoothie and tastes like pure July.
Key Ingredients
Six simple things, one gorgeous pitcher.
- Cold Brew Tea Bags: The base. They steep smooth in room temperature water with zero bitterness, no kettle required.
- Fresh Strawberries: The star. Five get simmered into syrup and three get sliced into the ice cubes for the prettiest glasses on the porch.
- Granulated Sugar: The sweetness. Split between the tea and the syrup so every layer is seasoned, adjust to your sweet tea allegiance.
- Fresh Lemon: The brightness. One squeezed lemon tips this into strawberry lemonade iced tea territory.
- Water: The canvas. Two quarts for steeping plus a cup for the syrup, filtered if your tap tastes like a swimming pool.
See recipe card for exact quantities.
Variations and Substitutions
One pitcher formula, a whole summer of remixes.
- Unsweet version: Cut the sugar in half or skip it in the tea entirely, the strawberry syrup carries plenty.
- Green tea swap: Cold brew green tea bags make a lighter, spa day version of the same pitcher.
- Sparkling: Fill glasses half with chilled tea and top with club soda for a fizzy strawberry tea cooler.
- Mint garden: Slap a handful of fresh mint and drop it in the pitcher for the last hour of chilling.
- Peachy Arnold Palmer: Love the tea plus lemonade combination? My peach Arnold Palmer is the stone fruit sequel.
How to Make Strawberry Iced Tea
- Prepare the cold brew tea by steeping two tea bags in 2 quarts of room temperature water with 1 cup of the sugar for 5 to 10 minutes, until the strength is to your liking. Discard the tea bags.
- While the tea steeps, place the 5 chopped strawberries in a saucepan with the remaining 1 cup water and 1/4 cup sugar over medium heat. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.
- Strain the strawberry liquid through a fine mesh strainer, gently pressing the berries to squeeze out every drop of juice. Let the syrup cool, then stir in the fresh lemon juice.
- Add the strawberry lemon syrup to the steeped tea and stir to combine. Place a slice of strawberry into each well of an ice cube tray, carefully pour some of the tea over the berries, and freeze until solid.
- Pour the remaining tea into a pitcher and refrigerate until cold. To serve, pop the strawberry ice cubes into glasses, add lemon slices if you like, and pour the chilled tea over the top.
Recipe Tips & Tricks
- Steep to your strength. Five minutes gives a light, crisp tea, the full ten gives a bolder Southern style glass, taste as you go.
- Press the berries, do not just drain them. The back of a spoon against the strainer is where all the concentrated strawberry flavor lives.
- Cool the syrup before it meets the tea. Hot syrup into cool tea muddies the flavor, five minutes of patience keeps it bright.
- Make the ice cubes a day ahead. They need several hours to freeze solid, and a stash in a freezer bag means pitcher number two is instant.
- Use ripe, red berries. This recipe amplifies whatever the strawberries bring, peak season fruit makes a noticeably better pitcher.
- Scale up for a crowd. The recipe doubles cleanly into a drink dispenser, just double the ice cube trays too.
Serving Ideas and Suggestions
Strawberry iced tea is the pitcher that carries a backyard cookout, set it out sweating in the sun with mason jars and paper straws and let everyone help themselves. Pour it at a cookout next to my beer can chicken and watch the pitcher empty before the chicken rests.
It is the designated family drink for grill nights, sweet enough that the kids feel fancy and refreshing enough that the adults refill it all afternoon. It cools the fire from my sticky grilled chicken wings and pairs perfectly with my grilled shrimp skewers.
For a porch party drink station, offer it alongside one adult option and you have every guest covered. Hosting adults only? My wine spritzer and white wine sangria round out the drink station.
Leftover pitcher keeps beautifully in the refrigerator for about 3 days, and the flavor actually deepens overnight as the strawberry settles in.
Strawberry Iced Tea FAQs
Strawberry iced tea keeps about 3 days covered in the refrigerator, and many people think day two is the best one, the strawberry and lemon settle deeper into the tea overnight. Give the pitcher a stir before pouring since the fruit syrup can drift toward the bottom. The strawberry ice cubes hold for weeks in a freezer bag, so you can restock glasses long after the pitcher is gone.
Yes, regular black tea bags work fine with one adjustment. Brew them hot, using 4 to 6 bags for 2 quarts, steep about 5 minutes, then sweeten while warm and let the tea cool completely before adding the strawberry syrup. Cold brew bags are simply more forgiving, they cannot oversteep into bitterness, which is why this recipe reaches for them, but the strawberry lemon syrup is delicious over any base tea.
Freeze the tea itself into the ice cubes, that is the whole secret of this strawberry iced tea. Regular ice melts into plain water and thins the pitcher glass by glass, but cubes made of tea with strawberry slices frozen inside get better as they melt, releasing more flavor and fruit. Make a double tray while you are at it, they keep in a freezer bag and upgrade store bought tea and lemonade too.
For the simmered syrup, fresh and frozen strawberries perform almost identically, the ten minute simmer breaks either down completely, so use frozen without hesitation in the off season. For the ice cubes, fresh slices hold their shape and look prettier suspended in the cube, thawed frozen berries go soft and shaggy. Peak summer berries make the brightest pitcher, but a frozen bag version in January is still a little vacation.
As written, this lands in sweet tea territory, noticeable but balanced by the lemon. The sugar lives in two places, a cup steeped into the tea and a quarter cup in the strawberry syrup. To lighten it, cut the tea sugar in half or skip it entirely and let the syrup do the sweetening. To go full Southern, add an extra quarter cup while the tea is steeping. Taste the finished blend cold before deciding, chilling mutes sweetness.
Yes, honey swaps in nicely and adds its own floral note to strawberry iced tea. Use about 3/4 cup of honey in place of the full cup of sugar in the tea, stirring while the tea is still at room temperature so it dissolves, and 3 tablespoons in the strawberry simmer. Lighter honeys like clover play nicest with the fruit. Agave works the same way, and either version tastes noticeably more homemade.
Made this strawberry iced tea? Leave a comment and a star rating below, and tell me if the strawberry ice cubes made it into your permanent rotation!
Come the holidays, my bubbly pomegranate punch takes over pitcher duty.
Strawberry Iced Tea
Ingredients
- 2 qt plus 1 cup of water
- 2 cold brew tea bags
- 1 1/4 Cup granulated sugar
- 8 strawberries 5 large chop and 3 sliced
- juice from one lemon fresh squeezed
- lemon slices for garnish optional
Instructions
- Prepare cold brew tea by steeping two tea bags in 2 quarts room temperature water with 1 cup of the sugar for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the strength of tea is to your liking.
- While tea is steeping, place the 5 chopped strawberries with the remaining water and sugar in a sauce pan over medium heat. Let come to a simmer and simmer for 10 minutes. Strain strawberry liquid through a fine mesh colander gently crushing the berries to get the juice out of them. Let liquid cool and add in lemon juice.
- Add strawberry/lemon mix to the steeped tea, discarding the tea bags. Mix to combine everything together.
- Taking an ice cube tray, place sliced of the 3 strawberries into each container. Carefully, pour the tea mixture over the strawberries and place in freezer to freeze. Place remaining tea in a pitcher and let get cold in the fridge.
- When tea is cold and ice cubes are frozen, pop out the ice cubes, add to a glass with lemon slices (optional) and pour in the tea. Serve and enjoy!
Nutrition
Love This Recipe?
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I only did the lemon because I don’t have any strawberries, but it was amazing! Very sweet, we loved it. I would definitely recommend it to a friend.
Wow, does this ever look GOOD! And as always, your photography is beautiful! Thank you for sharing this with us at Treasure Box Tuesday- pinned! 🙂
I am marking this as a must serve recipe at our next summer patio party. The ice cubes are a great addition, and will really help to keep the flavors from fading. Delicious!
This looks so refreshing. I love the ice cubes. Thanks for sharing over at the Snickerdoodle Sunday.
Thanks so much for sharing your delicious and refreshing summer drinks with Foodie Friends Friday party this weekend. I’ve pinned and shared.
We look forward to seeing you again soon with more delicious recipes.
Joanne/WineLady Cooks
Sounds so refreshing. Can’t wait to try it as I love all 3 things. We are having a very hot Summer here in London so this sounds like the perfect Summer drink. #LOBS
I’m impressed and all with the recipe, but I just had one of those life-altering blog moments in the bit about ice cubes. Mind.Blown. I hate a watered-down drink! It’ll be tough to find a plain old water ice cube in my house ever again, thanks to you, Dana.