The perfect summer refreshment: mint iced tea brewed with garden fresh mint and sweetened just how you like it with a vanilla mint sugar syrup.

This is unlike any iced tea you’ve had before. Rather than using bags of dried tea that are who knows how old, this one is made with fresh mint right from the garden (or, you know, the grocery). Make a big batch of it to sip all summer long!

I recently came across a photo of a yard overtaken by mint. It was literally a carpet of mint alongside the entire house, and while the caption implied this was a bad thing (it shows just how pervasive mint can be when set loose), I couldn’t help but wish I had a yard so I could do just that. Intentionally.

Why? So I could have an unlimited supply of fresh mint for tea, of course (maybe I’d lend some to Taylor for a Julep now and then, but only if he asked nicely!) For now, my two pots of mint will have to suffice.

I love sipping on hot mint tea in the winter, but have always bought the dried stuff. It wasn’t until our recent trip to France where our hostess brewed up a pot of warm mint tea one night using a handful of fresh mint from the garden.

I know it seems silly, but I’d never even thought to use fresh mint. It was nothing short of a life-changing revelation.

And, while hot tea made with fresh mint is divine, I don’t exactly want to be drinking anything even remotely warm when it’s this hot outside.

So I set about making an iced version, perfect for summer sipping.

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