Iced Brick Tea with Honey and Orange
A cold, refreshing reinvention of brick tea — strong-simmered, sweetened with honey, and brightened with orange to soften its smoky depth into a bold iced cooler.
Brick tea is built for boiling, not for delicate cold brewing, so the best iced version starts with the traditional hard simmer and is then cooled and reworked into something refreshing rather than chasing a flash-chilled approach that would leave it underextracted and flat.
Because brick tea's flavor leans smoky and mineral rather than bright or floral, it needs a citrus and honey backbone to feel at home over ice. Orange juice and zest in particular play beautifully against the tea's earthiness, the way a bold black tea like Lapsang souchong pairs with citrus in countless iced tea traditions.
Skip the butter and salt for this version — this is brick tea reimagined for hot weather, not a chilled version of po cha. The result is closer to a smoky, dark iced tea with a honeyed orange edge: unusual, memorable, and a good entry point for people who find traditional butter tea too rich for a warm day.
Serve tall over plenty of ice with an orange wheel, and consider it a conversation-starting alternative to standard iced black tea — same caffeine lift, but a completely different, more savory-leaning flavor world.
Ingredients
- 1 piece (about 10g) Tibetan brick tea, broken apart
- 3 cups water
- 2 tbsp honey
- Juice of 1 orange
- Zest of 1/2 orange
- Orange wheels, for garnish
- Plenty of ice
How to make it
- 1Simmer the brick tea in water for 8–10 minutes, until dark and strongly flavored.
- 2Strain out the leaves and stir the honey into the hot tea until fully dissolved.
- 3Stir in the orange juice and zest. Let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until fully chilled, about 1 hour.
- 4Fill tall glasses with ice and pour the chilled tea over the top.
- 5Garnish with an orange wheel and serve immediately.
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