In keeping with Frog Commissary's image as an innovator, the teas are distinctive. The company's Bangkok stand serves a lemongrass-infused iced tea, garnished with mint and lime, to partner with Thai food.
Gung-Ho, a stand specializing in pan-Asian noodle dishes, has honey-sweetened iced green tea as its signature drink. Fresca, a stand with a Mediterranean bent, serves a fruit-flavored iced tea made from Celestial Seasonings Raspberry Zinger and Twinings Blackcurrant teas, garnishing it with orange slices.
When Poses makes iced tea at home, he is mindful of people who shun sugar for medical or dietary reasons. He refrigerates the tea without sweetening it and keeps a bottle of simple syrup - a mixture of granulated sugar dissolved with water over heat - in his kitchen, allowing guests to sweeten each glass to taste or not at all. And it's not always a "simple" syrup: Poses sometimes adds fresh ginger or mint.
The syrup will keep for two or three months at room temperature. It can be refrigerated, but it will be harder to pour.
Alternatively, Poses sometimes warms several tablespoons of honey in the microwave and adds it to tea at serving time. Honey that has not been heated will not completely dissolve in cold tea - nor will granulated sugar or artificial sweetener.
The great advantage of iced teas is that they can be made without any special equipment. (You don't even need to boil water to make sun tea.) But if you have a blender or juicer, or even an old-fashioned lemon reamer and a strong arm, you can expand your summer drink possibilities.
