Cold Brew Your Iced Tea with Koridashi

With our attention more fractured than ever, what can we learn from melting ice? 

Originating in Japan, koridashi refers to the process of scattering tea leaves on top of ice cubes and letting that mixture naturally melt. The water slowly pulls out the flavors of the leaves, infusing into a cloudy beverage over the course of many hours. 

The resulting beverage is surprisingly different from traditional iced tea. In koridashi, tannins and tart flavors commonly found in over-steeped tea are not given the chance to develop. The tea’s umami flavors ramp up, and an earthy, grassy sweetness develops, and nuances that otherwise would not be there reveal themselves. 

How to Brew Tea Using the Koridashi Method

There are a couple of factors to consider when approaching koridashi. 

Choice of Tea. You can use virtually any tea for koridashi, but the real key here is that you buy loose leaf tea. Direct contact between leaf and ice is crucial for this method to work. From there, the varietal of tea depends on your taste. Green teas — especially gyokuro teas — do wonders with koridashi. I recommend Thrive Market Organic Nepali Pearl Green Tea or Thrive Market Darjeeling Green Tea for your first forays into koridashi. 

Ice. Considering that ice consists of the majority of the drink, your choice in water is crucial. Purified tap water works, but I recommend mineral-rich, natural water — such as Richard’s Rainwater — for your cup. I also recommend freezing the water in smaller cubes or crushing larger hunks of ice into smaller shards. 

Time. I found in testing that the benefits and flavors of koridashi were achieved and near identical in 6 hour versus 3 hour preparations. Anything steeped past 6 hours began tasting stale. Once all the ice has melted away, you can serve immediately as the whole process is done. 

Koridashi Tea Recipe

Active time: 3 minutes

Total time: 3-4 hours

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

32 oz of Ice 

4 tablespoons of tea

Instructions

To begin, crush your ice into chunks roughly 2 inches wide. 

Scatter tea leaves atop ice and let them melt. 

Check in every hour to monitor your ice melting. If you want to speed up the process, add a ¼ of the ice as cold water. 

When you are ready to serve, use a small tea strainer to catch leaves. 

An Experiment in Three

To really taste the differences that koridashi can offer, I conducted an informal side-by-side-by-side taste test brewing Thrive Market Organic Nepali Pearl Green Tea. 

1. The first cup was brewed with hot water and kept hot.
2. The second cup was brewed hot, but chilled down with cold water. I brewed 60% of the total water hot, then added the remaining 40% of the water via ice to chill it rapidly.  
3. The third was brewed using the koridashi method.

Results

Time. No surprises here, the koridashi cup took the longest. Preliminary attempts at the method taught me that I should expect at least four hours for crushed ice cubes to melt. Keep ‘em whole and it takes even longer. The hot brewed cup and the rapidly chilled cup, in contrast, took minutes to prepare and drink. 

Flavor. The koridashi cup surprised me with how different it was compared to the other cups. What it lacked in upfront brightness, it made up for with deeper, more umami-rich flavors. The tannins were gone, which was expected but nice for such a “long” steep. The rapidly chilled cup and the hot cup were identical in flavor; the hot cup actually developed more flavor as it cooled down — really illustrating the trade-off between temperature and flavor when it comes to brewing time. 

Tasting an Afternoon

So what is there to be gained from intentionally brewing slower? Tea is simply leaves and water — why complicate that? In a culture that goads us toward hyper-efficiency and instant gratification, koridashi-brewed tea reminds us that there is something beautiful about patience. 

When you brew slowly, you are beholden to time. This gentle act of brewing tea critically challenges you to slow down and be mindful of what is in front of you. I know how good hot tea and iced tea are. It’s easy to experience that. The reward is in the reveal of a cup that you simply would not have been able to taste had you not let the ice melt. 

Oftentimes, I forget how long an afternoon feels. I want and I want and I want, and I mindlessly drive toward an efficiency that focuses so heavily on results that I lose perspective of the process. How did this happen? How can I make amends with this restlessness? It’s a lot to ponder over a cup of tea.