Ingredients
Method
Brew the White Tea
- Heat 1.25 liters water to 78 to 82°C. Add the white tea and steep for 3 to 4 minutes. Do not use boiling water and do not oversteep, or the tea will lose its delicate floral character and can turn flat or slightly bitter. White tea leaves are minimally processed compared to green or black tea, leaving their delicate compounds especially vulnerable to both overheating and oversteeping at once — the specific temperature and steep window here protect that fragile character from both directions simultaneously.
Sweeten the Tea
- Strain the tea into a bowl or pitcher. While still warm, stir in 120 to 150g sugar until fully dissolved. Let the tea cool to room temperature. Dissolving the sugar while the tea is still genuinely warm takes advantage of sugar's much greater solubility at that temperature, ensuring it fully dissolves rather than leaving any undissolved granules once the tea cools.
Cold-Macerate the Strawberries
- Place the sliced strawberries in a bowl with 35g sugar. Toss well, then lightly press a portion of the fruit with a fork to release juice. Let sit for 20 to 30 minutes in the refrigerator. This keeps the strawberry flavor fresh and bright instead of cooked or jammy. Sugar draws moisture directly out of the strawberries' own cell structure through osmosis, concentrating real fruit juice into the bowl entirely without any heat ever touching the berries.
Strain the Strawberry Base
- Pour the strawberries through a fine-mesh sieve over a bowl. Press gently to extract the juice and some soft pulp, but do not force too much fiber through. Discard the solids or reserve for another use. Pressing only gently, rather than forcing the fruit hard through the sieve, keeps the finished drink clean and light rather than heavy with fibrous strawberry solids.
Cold-Infuse the Tarragon
- Lightly bruise the fresh tarragon between your fingers. Add it to the cooled sweet tea and refrigerate for 30 to 45 minutes. Taste after 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the tarragon once the tea has a gentle herbal, lightly anise-like note. It should stay subtle and refined. Tasting partway through this steep, rather than committing to a single fixed time, is what lets tarragon's distinctive anise-like character be judged directly against how it's actually developing — that flavour can shift from pleasantly subtle to genuinely medicinal within a fairly narrow window, and active tasting is the only reliable way to catch that transition precisely.
Combine and Balance
- Stir the strained strawberry juice into the tarragon-infused tea. Add 450 to 550ml cold water until the drink tastes light, clean, and balanced. If needed, add 5 to 10ml lemon juice for brightness, or a tiny pinch of salt to sharpen the fruit flavor. The final yield should be about 2 liters. This tasting checkpoint matters directly given how much both strawberry ripeness and the developed tarragon infusion can vary — building in that adjustment stage accounts for that natural variability rather than assuming a fixed recipe always lands at the same balance.
Chill and Serve
- Chill for at least 30 minutes before serving. Fill tall glasses with ice. Add a thin strawberry slice inside each glass and garnish with a small fresh tarragon sprig. Pour over the iced tea and serve immediately. Using fresh, uninfused strawberry slices and tarragon sprigs specifically for garnish, rather than reusing the spent maceration or infusion, keeps the visual presentation looking genuinely vivid rather than dulled.
Notes
Brewing the white tea within that specific 78–82°C window deserves genuine respect as the single detail most responsible for this drink's delicate character. White tea undergoes the least processing of any major tea style, leaving its already-subtle compounds especially vulnerable to both overheating and oversteeping — either mistake flattens the tea's naturally light, floral quality in a way that's difficult to correct once it's happened, which is exactly why this recipe treats that temperature and timing with the same care applied to green tea, only more so.
Infusing the tarragon entirely cold, and tasting it periodically as it steeps, deserves the same attention this collection gives to every genuinely assertive fresh herb. Tarragon's distinctive anise-like flavour compounds can shift quickly, even in cold water, from a pleasant, subtle background note to something considerably stronger and more medicinal — active tasting during that steep is what lets the herb be pulled at precisely the right moment, before it moves past supportive and into dominant.
Cold-macerating the strawberries, pressing them only gently during straining, follows the same underlying logic protecting fresh fruit throughout this collection's other iced tea and lemonade recipes. That gentle handling draws out real, concentrated fruit juice through osmosis while keeping the finished tea light and clean, rather than heavy with the berries' own fibrous pulp.
The recipe's own explicit guidance that tarragon should remain "a whisper behind the strawberry, not the dominant note" deserves to be treated as this drink's actual organizing principle. Every technique choice here — the cold infusion, the specific tasting checkpoint, the restrained sprig count — exists specifically to protect that intended balance, keeping tarragon in a genuinely supporting role.