It’s going to be a matter of personal preference – lemongrass iced tea or lemongrass drink. How-ever, if you really love lemongrass, you will make and enjoy both!
I first shared with you in 2015 how to cool down with tall classes of lemongrass iced tea. Sweetened or unsweetened, it is a refreshing drink. If you are into flavoured water, you can make the tea, store it in water bottles and have it cold/chilled, or at room temperature. I prefer mine cold.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw local creative Andrea Bryan-Garner (whom I follow on social media), post that she might be onto something with the lemongrass drink she had made. I was immediately curious. Lemongrass is a grass so I wondered how it would taste, raw, as opposed to “cooked” being steeped in boiling water. I double-checked with her that all I needed to do was blend the grass (the green stalk-like leaves) with water and sweeten to taste. She recommended, as an option, that I add some fresh lemon juice for “extra zing”.
With the fresh lemongrass, I decided to divide the lot in half – blend to make the drink and the other half, to do as usual, make iced tea. Here are my findings.
The drink
● The leaves were rinsed well and chopped into 2-inch pieces. Nothing precise, it was about making it small enough to go into the blender and be broken down easily.
● I filled the jug with lemongrass until it came up to the 2-cup mark and then poured in 2 cups of water and let the blender go for 3 minutes on high, stopping halfway to check on the state of things.
● The drink was passed through a fine sieve, left to cool for 15 minutes (as you know blenders warm up ingredients). I tasted it by itself before sweetening it. It tasted like liquid lemongrass (which it was). And grassy.
● I sweetened it to taste with some lemon-flavoured simple syrup I had made and tasted it again. This time, it tasted like sweetened lemongrass water. Remembering Andrea’s suggestion as an option, I added some fresh-squeezed lime juice, stirred to mix and then tasted the drink again. That’s when things got interesting! It tasted sooooo good! The lime juice gave personality, or, we can say it gave character to the drink. I was looking forward to having the drink the following day after it would have gotten a chance to set/cure with the sweetener and lime juice.
● The following day, it did not disappoint. I had it with some tiny cubes of ice because I did not want the drink to be diluted. The drink had matured.
With the lemongrass drink, the flavour of lemongrass is more upfront, more pronounced. It is full-bodied. When you drink it, you know that you are drinking lemongrass and not simply a drink in which there is lemon. Having said that, it is a drink that needs the fresh lime or lemon juice added to it during the sweetening phase. Without it, it is ordinary. You would drink it and think that it needs something.
In comparison to the lemongrass iced tea (I refer to this as a tea simply because of the process involved in the making), the flavour of lemongrass in the tea is refined, it is lighter with a cleaner finish. You get more of the lemon flavour and not so much of the grassiness.
Unlike the lemongrass drink, you don’t need to add lime/lemon juice to the tea, and the addition of slices of fresh limes or lemons are a matter of personal preference. Regardless of which one you prefer, I recommend you give it a try. The tea is better with an overnight steep.
Another difference between the lemongrass drink and tea is the colour. The drink is green from the colour of the grass. The tea is light amber.
The use of hot lemongrass tea falls into the category of folk medicine (treatment based on tradition and the use of indigenous plants as remedies). Scientists have not yet conducted large-scale studies to prove the benefits we have been told about, such as relieving anxiety, lowering cholesterol, and relieving fever and pain among other things. I cook with and drink lemongrass tea (hot and cold) because I like the flavour and it reminds me of my childhood.
Give the drink or the iced tea a try and leave a comment online letting us know what you think and which you prefer.
Cynthia
