Iced Tea Party

Going the extra mile with distinctive iced teas that boast unique flavors and upscale additions is a better deal for customers�and bottom lines.

By Allison Perlik, Senior Editor -- Restaurants and Institutions, 8/18/2008 1:46:00 PM

Teas at Breadbar in Los Angeles

Move over, Arnold Palmer. There is so much more to do with iced tea than just adding lemonade to it. With flavor adjustments as simple as stirring in infused simple syrups and spirits, operators can reinvent a rote choice as a fun and funky treat—and make a low price-tag, high-margin beverage even more profitable.

No doubt there’s a market ready and waiting. A significant number of thirsty Americans make iced tea their drink of choice when dining out—the brewed beverage trails only soft drinks as the most-often-chosen accompaniment to lunch and dinner at restaurants, according to R&I’s 2008 New American Diner Study. Of the 55 billion servings of tea consumers tipped back in 2007, iced tea accounted for about 85%, the Tea Association of the U.S.A. reports.

More and more, these teas are going beyond basic black. Burlington, Vt.-based Ben & Jerry’s recently introduced the Iced TeaZer, a hibiscus-and-ginger-flavored white tea, while at upscale Mexican restaurant Besito in Huntington and Roslyn, N.Y., passion-fruit-infused iced tea arrives in style with simple syrup in mini stainless-steel teapots on the side.

Whist, the modern American restaurant at California’s Viceroy Santa Monica hotel, serves organic iced tea in 16-oz. carafes for $6. For $2 more, customers can add lemon, lavender or pomegranate infusions that arrive in tiny glasses nestled in the top of the elegant tea carafes.

Tea Times Two

Daniela Galarza of Breadbar in Los Angeles says that menuing house-brewed blackberry-jasmine green tea and black tea (a combination of Earl Grey and bergamot) is indicative of the bakery-bistro’s dedication to serving high-quality, artisanal products. For customers who prefer sweet tea but want an alternative to standard sweeteners, the restaurant soon will introduce house-made simple syrups created to complement each variety: lemongrass ginger for the blackberry-jasmine green tea and raspberry for the black tea. A sugar-free version is in the works as well.

At Brosia in Miami, owner Scott Engelman sought out a specialty purveyor to craft a custom iced tea that would complement the restaurant’s Mediterranean menu. The restaurant brews the blood-orange- and star-anise-accented blend in a standard iced-tea brewer that offers easy service from a dispenser. Engelman menus bottomless glasses for $4, at least twice the price he likely could charge for standard black-tea brews. The tea has proved an attention-getter, he says.

“Whenever I create concepts, I like to throw in a personal touch or a special twist, and customized iced tea is simple enough to implement,” he says. “I love that we get so many comments on a product that typically is just something automatic and mundane, a product people expect. It would be like if somebody commented on your ice water.”

Get in the Spirit (or Not)

The haze-inducing “Long Island iced teas” common to so many cocktail menus actually don’t contain tea at all, but bartenders are mixing up plenty of refreshing and often fruity quaffs that do. The elegant McCrady’s restaurant in Charleston, S.C., serves iced tea, local honey and lemon with whiskey for its Charleston Sweet Tea, while Southern Cider at upscale comfort-food spot Magoo’s in Pittsburgh adds to iced tea peach-flavored whiskey liqueur along with apple cider, ginger ale, cinnamon and fresh oranges.

Tennessee Fruit Tea at the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel in Nashville, Tenn., gets even more complex. Besides iced tea and whiskey, the recipe calls for orange liqueur, sour-apple and peach schnapps, and cranberry and orange juices.

With operators working to answer consumers’ call for an expanded selection of inventive alcohol-free options, iced tea becomes an even more indispensable tool. Hibiscus-infused iced tea garnished with an orange wedge earned a spot on the new nonalcoholic cocktail menu at Carnivale in Chicago, and Thai iced tea at 1369 Coffee House’s two locations in Cambridge, Mass., combines two Chinese black teas with cardamom, ginger, cloves, sugar and half-and-half.

Iced tea’s refreshing, noncarbonated profile makes it an ideal foundation for the new nonalcoholic-mixed-drink menu from Atlanta-based InterContinental Hotels Group, says Corporate Food and Beverage Director René van Camp. The new lineup is available at 400 Holiday Inns and select Crowne Plaza and InterContinental Hotels & Resorts properties nationwide.

Two of the nine drinks created by Atlanta chef and cookbook author Virginia Willis are iced-tea-based. The Raspberry Refresher combines raspberry iced tea with fresh raspberries, pineapple juice and lemon-lime soda, and Jasmine Iced Tea calls for jasmine green tea, lemonade, lemon-lime soda and turbinado sugar.

“These drinks require additional work and more ingredients; they present better and taste better; and they use different glassware, so it allows us to charge more for it, so we create a bit more revenue,” van Camp says. “The other thing that’s really great is you have a nonalcoholic cocktail base already, so if you want to make it alcoholic, you can just add a shot of whatever you want.”