The Best Tea for Iced Tea: Assam, Darjeeling, Green Tea and Caffeine-Free Tisanes

• Assam black tea for the classic lemon iced tea: bold enough to stand up to ice, lemon and sugar. Classic Assam Black is full-bodied and malty, with hints of yellow raisins and date palm and stone fruit near the end. More in Assam tea and What is black tea?
• Darjeeling for an elegant, fragrant glass, especially cold brewed. Our Darjeeling Summer Muscatel Black is blended from the season’s best summer teas, chosen from over 200 samples. A spring first flush Darjeeling makes a lighter, floral iced tea; brew it at 85–90°C (185–195°F) for 3 to 4 minutes.
• Green tea for a light, fresh glass and the recipes in our recipe guide. Darjeeling Green Tea is plain whole-leaf green tea, a good base for ginger, mango or mint.
• Mint green tea if you want flavor without extra steps. Green Tea Mint Digestion blends green tea with peppermint and natural mint flavor, and its product page says to steep it “hot or iced.”

What our blenders look for

Our first in-house blender, Shruti Tripuraneni, had a simple test: “If blending for iced tea, start by tasting the tea with ice to see if it tastes good.” Her notes rate the regions the same way this list does. Darjeelings “make great iced teas and lend themselves well to the addition of sugar syrup and mint,” while “the Nilgiri and Assam teas are delicious when iced and accommodate flavors of spices and milk readily.” Her one line on quality: “A good iced tea is bright and clear in the glass and should not cloud.”

That is why the Nilgiris belong on the list. Our 2015 story on their frost teas noted that Nilgiri teas “don’t develop the cloudiness one would normally find in a cold tea, which makes them perfect for iced tea blends.” Nilgiri Korakundah Winter Frost Black is one to try.

Single-estate teas, brewed cold

Fine teas are worth icing too. Our 2021 iced tea campaign put it this way: “some of these teas come out amazingly better when brewed cold,” from “the signature Muscatel black teas to medium-bodied Summer blacks” to light-bodied whites. Our procurement team’s 2023 spring notes add that high-quality Moonlight whites “can be infused multiple times and enjoyed iced in the 2nd or 3rd steep.” So the first cups of a good white are for drinking hot, and a later steep can go over ice.

A Darjeeling iced tea at home

Darjeeling gives a lighter glass than most people expect, and it tastes of tea, not sugar. When Meeta Sharma made iced tea from scratch in 2015 with “really fresh and delicious Darjeeling black tea,” a lemon, mint and honey, she got a “burnt umber-looking brew” that “had the noticeable astringency of a Darjeeling tea.” Her flatmate, raised on sachet mixes, still preferred the sugary kind. If you want a sweeter, softer Darjeeling glass, cold brew it.

Caffeine-free iced teas

Herbal tisanes contain no leaf from the tea plant, so most are naturally caffeine-free. Brew them with freshly boiled water for 5 to 7 minutes, then chill. Hibiscus Lemongrass Tisane has a velvety, tart and citrus cup with a hint of spice. We introduced it in 2015 as Hibiscus Lush, “best made into a refreshing summer iced tea,” and for a movie night in 2020 we iced it at 2.5 g for every 180 ml of water, chilled and served with ice and mint.

In between, in 2018, we suggested it both ways: “have a steaming cup for quiet comfort in the evening or serve chilled on a sunny afternoon.” Hibiscus gives up its color readily, so the infusion is a deep ruby red, and its tart, fruity taste holds up well when it is cold.

Butterfly pea flower

Butterfly Blue Pea Flower (Blue Amore) is the showpiece. It brews a deep blue, and “a squeeze of lemon” turns it “from blue to purple immediately.” Steep it hot or cold.

Lime works just as well: “Just add a dash of lime and witness the mesmerizing transformation!” we wrote in 2018, and in 2020 we suggested you “transform your party with a squeeze of lime!” In 2018 we also shared an iced version as a “super-cool hack.” More caffeine-free options are in Herbal tea (tisanes).

They grow in very different weather: Assam’s summer is hot and humid at 20–30°C, while Darjeeling’s summer days are bright and warm at 15–22°C.

Assam’s second flush is bold, malty and rich with golden tips, the base of most breakfast blends, and it can take milk and sugar, which suits iced chai and lemon iced tea. Darjeeling’s second flush is fruitier and more delicate, with the famous muscatel character, and is best without milk; it makes a fragrant cold brew. Read more in Second flush tea and muscatel.

The leaves picked in summer are more mature than spring leaves and give a more robust liquor, which is what lets them stand up to ice. Our 2015 story on the season called Assam’s summer teas “dark, bold, robust, and topped with classic flavors of malt and woody astringency,” and noted that in Darjeeling the muscatel comes from specific bushes in a short window each year. That window lasts roughly 10 to 15 days around June. For a summer muscatel from a single garden, try Castleton Summer Muscatel Black.

For the Nilgiri teas behind our later iced blends, see Winter and frost teas from the Nilgiris.