Have an empty honey jar and don’t know what to do with it? Use up every drop of that honeyed sweetness and make an iced tea! Add hot water to the jar to dissolve the leftover honey and brew your tea right in the jar. Small jars are great for a single to two-people serving while larger jars can serve more people.
Ingredients
- Empty/near empty honey jar
- More honey (1/4 for 32 oz jar, 1 tbsp for 16 oz jar, or to taste)
- Black tea bags (4-6 for 32 oz jar, 2 for 16 oz jar, depending on how strong you like it)Â
- Lemon (1/2 lemon for 32 oz, 1/4 lemon for 16 oz)Â
- Blackberries (half a pint to a handful)Â
- Fresh sage (1 large or small spring)
- Boil enough water to fill the jar halfway on the stove or in tea kettle. Add your tea bags and boiling water to the jar.
- Let the tea brew in the jar according to the package’s directions. Stir in extra honey while the tea is still on the hotter side. Remove tea bags.
- Allow the water to cool down enough for you to hold the jar comfortably.
- Fill the jar halfway with water and seal tightly with a lid. Shake the jar to swish the water to cover all of the honey inside the jar.
- Tips: If you are using a larger jar, you can also scrape clumps of honey from the jar with a wooden spoon. Add more warm/hot water if the honey remains crystalized. Add a 1/4 tsp (large jar) to a tiny pinch (small jar) of baking soda to keep the tea from looking too cloudy.
- Continuing shaking and stirring until the honey is dissolved in the water
- Squeeze the lemon juice into the jar, scrunch/slap the sage leaves to the release the oils, and place whole blackberries to the jar.
- Pour cool/cold water over the tea leaving about an inch from the top of the jar and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours or overnight for a large jar.
- Strain out the blackberries, sage, and lemon if you’d like or leave them as garnish. Taste your tea to see if needs more cool water added. Serve chilled or with ice and enjoy!
Recipe and photos by Alison Penn.
Cook’s note: This recipe came about as a simple problem-solving exercise to use all of my empty honey jars that I collected from my trips to the farmers’ market. The Texan side of my family made iced tea weekly, so it’s a staple drink for us and a way of life. Use this recipe as foundation for other iced teas. Honey peach tea anyone?
Local ingredientsÂ
- Mesquite Honey from M Linares Apiaries in the Mesilla ValleyÂ
- Sage from Harmony House in Las CrucesÂ
