When it's a hot day here in the tropics, I usually drink iced tea during the day. I make just enough with my Hamilton Beach iced tea maker (which is really just a tea brewer with a pitcher you can add ice to) to finish off by the end of the day. Very recently, I started drinking homemade iced coffee instead of iced tea.

I like iced coffee.

Over the past week, I had all of my upper teeth extracted. I have been in no position to make anything for myself until today.

After the first batch of teeth were pulled, and I needed something cold to drink, my wife made me iced coffee instead of iced tea because we were out of tea bags. She stirred sugar and instant coffee into half a cup of hot water and then added cold water and ice cubes.

I was surprised that I liked ice cold coffee. My wife continued to make me iced coffee until a couple of evenings ago when I fried my computer keyboard. Afterward, I couldn't bring myself to ask her for more. I was too embarrassed by my own stupidity. That's when I started making my own.

Better than store-bought iced coffee.

Although it's only a temporary thing because I like hot coffee better than iced coffee (but my gums can't take it right now), I find making iced coffee at home to be easy and quick. There's no need to stock up on iced coffee in a can or a bottle… ever.

You could argue that the cold coffee sold by Starbucks is better, but I can't agree with you. I've tasted so many brands of cold coffee (which isn't really iced coffee anyway) over the years, going back to 1987 in Japan, that I can only remember a few brands which weren't worth buying.

Well, I don't need to buy any iced coffee at all anymore.

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I don't hide the fact that Nescafé Classic is my favorite instant coffee product. I buy two or three jars of it every month (except this month because it was out of stock). A couple of months ago, I noticed an advertisement on one of the jars I'd purchased. It didn't say a whole lot — the new product mentioned wasn't on the shelves yet.

Nescafé Protect

The new product is called "Nescafé Protect". I must not have paid attention to the label I looked at, at the time, because I only remember the "body partner" phrase. Since the store (Royal Subic) was out of Nescafé Classic, I ended up getting two jars of Nescafé Gold and one jar of Nescafé Protect. The jar of Nescafé Protect was half the size of the Nescafé Gold (in milliliters). I bought it simply to give it my exclusive (ha!) taste test, being the coffee fanatic that I am.

Nescafé Protect combines green coffee beans with regular coffee beans and is purported to have three times the amount of antioxidants as green tea. I don't really like green tea (I prefer black), so I can't say anything about that. According to their promotional material, regular coffee has twice the amount of antioxidants as green tea while Nescafé Protect has three times the amount. Would I be any healthier by switching to Nescafé Protect as my regular coffee choice? I don't know and I don't care.

The Nescafé Protect Taste Test

According to the promotional information, Nescafé Protect tastes like high quality regular coffee, making a smooth, mild and balanced cup with a fruity note. I didn't detect the fruity note, thankfully, because I don't like the flavor of fruit with either my coffee or my tea. On a side note, I always buy unsweetened Nestea (not the decaffeinated evil twin) as my instant tea product. I couldn't even find tea bags in the store this time (out of stock as well).

Does the taste warrant a switch? No. In fact, I like the taste of Nescafé Classic better. I have yet to taste the Nescafé Gold that I bought, but I suspect it will taste almost exactly like Nescafé Classic.

All Things Nestlé

I may sound like the poster child for the Nestlé Corporation based in the US, but I'm really not. It's just that Nestlé makes so many products used by consumers around the world. The Nestlé Corporation has subsidiaries in several countries, including the Philippines and Switzerland. The Nescafé coffees that I buy are manufactured by Nestlé Philippines while the Nestea jars that I buy say Nestlé Switzerland.

Nestlé makes other products you may be familiar with, but may not readily associate with them. In fact the old "Qwik" was change to "Nesquik" in order to emphasize the Nestlé brand. Heck, even the rabbit got a makeover.

Chances are, if you do the grocery shopping on a regular basis, you'll spot Nestlé products all over the place. I'm not even talking about the coffee and tea products. You can see breakfast cereals, dairy products, ice cream and a whole lot more.

It's no wonder I have a bunch of Nestlé products in my house. The products are everywhere.

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There are so many ways to make iced tea, it's probably impossible to write about all of them. I'm going to try to cover the ways that I've done it, my mother and siblings have done it and the way I've seen other people do it. I'll start with the picture you see on the left.

The Hamilton Beach Iced Tea Maker

I always thought that making iced tea was incredibly simple and couldn't be made any easier. Actually, the simplest way is to use instant iced tea. In my opinion, however, instant iced tea tastes like utter garbage compared to iced tea being made from freshly-brewed tea using tea bags.

The Hamilton Beach Iced Tea Maker is one of several kitchen gadgets that makes brewing a half-gallon (two quarts) of tea extremely easy. All you have to do is to fill the reservoir with water, put the tea bags into the chamber at the top of the serving pitcher, and turn it on. In 10 minutes, you have freshly-brewed tea. I wouldn't recommend putting ice in the pitcher, as displayed, before brewing or you're just going to end up with more water.

The instructions won't tell you how much tea to put in the chamber. Based on experience, I would use one or two of the large tea bags or three or four of the small tea bags. To be honest, I've had one of these iced tea makers sitting on my kitchen counter for almost two months and I've yet to use it. I still have a jar of instant iced tea in an upper cupboard and it's still only half empty. I drink a lot more coffee than I do tea.

Old-Fashioned Tea Brewing

The way my mother and siblings brewed tea was to put tea bags in a sauce pan and let it boil for 10 or 15 minutes. After the tea cooled a little, the tea bags would be thrown away and the tea would be transferred to a gallon pitcher. Water would then be added to the pitcher to make the full gallon.

The tea bags wouldn't be thrown away immediately. They usually poured the brewed tea into the pitcher, poured more water into the pan and then poured that water into the pitcher before adding more plain water. This was how they extracted the last remaining amount of tea still in the tea bags.

Sun Tea

In places where the sun shines most of the year, people make sun tea. There have even been entrepreneuring companies making specialty glass containers for sun tea.

The way we always made sun tea was by filling an old pickle jar (which held a gallon) with water, put five of the small tea bags or three of the large tea bags in, and put the lid back on. We would leave it out in the sun for about an hour because we liked it strong.

Iced Tea – The Final Ingredients

Some people add nothing to the tea except ice cubes. Other people add sugar. I've see creamer added to hot tea, but never to iced tea.

A lot of people, mostly US southerners, like sweet iced tea. One of the chicken places I went to when I lived in that area provided sweet iced tea with almost every order of chicken. It was so sweet; it was almost too sweet to drink.

I prefer my iced tea to be slightly sweetened. No more than two spoonfuls of sugar with 8-12 ounces of tea is enough.

Similar Posts:

• Using Our Hamilton Beach Iced Tea Maker
• Iced Tea or Iced Coffee?
• When Good Tea Turns Bad — Bad Tasting Tea
• Iced Tea — When It's Too Hot to Drink Coffee
• Coffee or Tea, Hot or Cold, But No Soda For Me