pretty minded

last sunday chad and i visited our favorite thai restaurant named basil for an early lunch date. basil is on the top charts as one of our favorite places to eat and we pretty much order the same thing every time.  chad typically orders a thai iced tea, which he tries his hardest not to suck down before our food comes. (its a struggle let me tell you) as we were sitting there sunday, i was thinking to myself how it would be fun to try and make this drink at home so i asked our waitress where they purchase their tea from. apparently they purchase it from an asian foods distributor and while i continued pestering our poor waitress about how i want to try and make some at home and hoowwww would i be able to get some of this tea on my hands... she happily offered for me to purchase a bag of it from them and you better believe i did. 

this is my second attempt at making it. the first try i didnt let the tea steep long enough and i added half and half for the cream. round two was much more successful so here is how to make it:

you will need:

water

1 tsp.vanilla 

sweeten condensed milk

1 cup thai tea leaves (these are the same ones i received from the restaurant here or you can purchase them from your favorite local thai restaurant) 

1. boil 8 cups of water (i boiled my water in a tea pot, it was easier to control when straining) 2. once water has come to a boil, remove from burner and add one cup of thai tea leaves and one teaspoon of vanilla. make sure to blend with a spoon so all leaves are soaking. then let steep for 10 minutes if not longer 3. using a strainer pour tea into jar and let tea cool in the fridge for a while 4. when tea is cooled fill a glass full of ice and add the tea only filling the glass 3/4 full, then fill the rest with desired amount of condensed milk 5. stir with a straw and enjoy!

im pretty satisfied with how it all turned out and i am definitely going to be making more of this bad boy. i think my next drink i want to try and make at home is horchata, what are your thoughts? have you made it before?