Well friends, what a crazy week it’s been!  I’ve been glued to the news for the past couple of days and honestly haven’t been feeling super creative.  Even through all of this, we’ve been experimenting with interesting new teas at work, which helped spark this idea for a recipe during an at-home development session.  The resulting bright pink color of this lemonade helped lift my spirits, and allowed my outlook get a little rosier for the day (awful pun intended).

This lemonade uses steeped rose tea instead of water, which is what contributes to the beautiful hot-pink hue and rose flavor.  I think the floral notes of the rose works really well with the tart acidity of the lemon, and the sugar helps round everything else out.  Plus, the acid from the lemon juice transforms the steeped rose tea from a darkish orange color to a bright, hot pink!  I love it when acids lead to fun color changes, and the resulting color that I got in this beverage was really excellent.

For my tea, I used rose tea that was made fully of rose petals and rose buds.  For the best effect I would recommend to do the same, although you may still achieve tasty results if you use a blend.  There are plenty of options on Amazon (click the link for the brand I used, not sponsored), and I’ve seen the straight rose tea available in some specialty stores as well.

I scaled this recipe up to make enough for 4 big glasses.  If you want to make just one glass, feel free to use my base ratio for single serve lemonade: 1 cup water (in this case, rose tea), juice of half a lemon, and 1 tbsp sugar.  Full recipe down below, photo up top!

Rose Tea Lemonade:

Ingredients:

• ½ cup of rose tea
• 4 cups of water
• ¼ – ⅓ cup of sugar
• Juice of 2 lemons

Method:

1. Add the rose tea to a tea pot or a large heat-resistant container (such as a large Pyrex measuring container).  Bring the water to a full boil.  Once boiling, remove the water from the heat and pour over the rose tea.  Allow the tea to steep for about 10 minutes, then move to the refrigerator to cool.  Allow to chill in the refrigerator until the tea is completely cold, about 4 hours.
2. Once the tea has been chilled, add the sugar (choose the amount based on your sweetness preference!) and the juice of 2 lemons to a large pitcher.  Stir this mixture until the sugar is thoroughly dissolved into the lemon juice.
3. Strain the chilled rose tea to remove the steeped rose petals either by pouring the tea through a strainer or by removing the petals with a spoon.  Pour the strained tea into the pitcher with the lemon juice and sugar.  Stir to thoroughly combine, and taste for sweetness.  Adjust the flavors as desired by either adding more sugar (for more sweetness) or lemon juice (for more sourness).
4. Chill until ready to serve, and enjoy!