Hibiscus Iced Tea with Lime and Ginger

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

A ruby-red pitcher tea built the way the best taquerias and juice counters do it: dried hibiscus flowers steeped just long enough to pull out their cranberry tartness without the papery bitterness that comes from boiling them hard. Fresh ginger and a strip of orange peel go in with the flowers, lime juice goes in cold at the end, and the whole thing is made as a strong concentrate so the ice never waters it down. Keeps a week in the fridge and gets better on day two.

Ingredients

• 2 cup water, for the hot steep
• 1 1/2 cup dried hibiscus flowers (flor de jamaica), loosely packed (about 2 oz)
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar, or more to taste
• 1 tbsp fresh ginger, sliced into thin coins
• 1 wide strip orange peel, no white pith
• 1 cinnamon stick (optional)
• 1 pinch kosher salt
• 4 cup cold water, for the cold steep

• 3 tbsp fresh lime juice (from about 2 limes)
• 2 cup cold water or sparkling water, to dilute
• Ice
• 1 lime, cut into wheels
• 1 handful fresh mint sprigs (optional)

Instructions

1. Rinse the hibiscus flowers: put them in a bowl, cover with cool water, swish for 15 seconds, then drain in a sieve. Dried flowers are field-dried and often dusty, and this one rinse is the difference between clean tartness and a faint musty edge.
2. In a nonreactive pot (stainless steel or enameled — not bare aluminum or cast iron, which react with the acid and dull the color), bring 2 cups water to a full boil. Kill the heat.
3. Add the rinsed hibiscus, sugar, ginger coins, orange peel, cinnamon stick if using, and the pinch of salt. Stir until the sugar fully dissolves. Cover and steep off the heat for exactly 10 minutes — do not simmer or boil the flowers, which extracts a drying, tannic bitterness.
4. Pour in the 4 cups cold water, stir, cover, and let the mixture cold-steep on the counter for 1 hour, or in the refrigerator for up to 8 hours for a deeper, rounder flavor. The cold phase pulls color and fruitiness without more tannin.
5. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a pitcher, pressing gently on the flowers with the back of a spoon to release the last of the liquid — press gently, don't grind. Discard the solids (or save them, see tips).
6. Stir in the lime juice. Taste the concentrate straight: it should be aggressively tart and clearly sweet, almost too intense. That's correct.
7. Add 2 cups cold water and taste again, adding more water or sugar in small amounts until it drinks like a strong, bracing iced tea. Chill at least 2 hours, until very cold.
8. Serve over plenty of ice in tall glasses, with a lime wheel and a mint sprig. Stir each glass once before drinking — the concentrate settles slightly as it sits.

Chef's tips

Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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