DIY: Homemade Iced Tea

It has been so ridiculously hot here lately. So hot in fact that I couldn't even write this post and think clearly until this here cooler week. With temperatures of 35C/95F with humidity and my brain turning to sludge, water just wasn't going to cut it. I spent a week craving (and succumbing) to iced drinks from Starbucks or Birch, and feeling guilty with every slurp, decided I could easily make my own iced tea. "Hi, I'd like a Passion Fruit Iced Tea, Unsweetened, Grande please" - said I too many times. This particular drink from Starbucks is so good, without the need to be sweetened, yet finding a good duplicate to make at home has proven surprisingly challenging.

To re-create your own, refreshing iced tea blend is very simple and a lot more cost-effective if you plan on drinking a lot of tea in the hot weather. 

1. Gather your tea in any form you choose. I made it from loose leaf tea and in pouches for the tea below. It's an added bonus if you find a cute spice and tea shop like Sullivan Street Tea and Spice Company along the way. You can also order their products online.

2. Place your loose leaf or pouch tea in a teapot or brewing vessel with boiling water (or depending on the tea, less than boiling water) for a couple of hours. Use approximately half a litre (16 oz) of boiling water per serving of tea. My theory is the longer you allow it to draw, the stronger it will be, and you'll want it stronger rather than weaker especially for fruit teas. 

3. Once you have allowed the boiling tea to steep/draw/brew for some time (anything from 30mins to over night), remove the tea leaves and add another half litre (16 oz) of ice cold water and some ice blocks to put the ice into ice tea. I also added some lemon slices to enhance the flavour.

4. An alternative to loose leaf tea is tea that is specifically designed to be iced. I found this brand and flavour at Whole Foods but I am sure many others will do. So far this Rishi tea is the closest I've found to my beloved Passion Fruit Iced Tea - it's absolutely delish. Ooooo-ahhhhhh. yum! 

5. Sit back, relax and sip. 

P.S. Some more Sullivan Street Company pictures just 'cause it's such a cute store - like something out of Alice and Wonderland!

Fall in love with.. the dress.

As sad as this may sound, whenever I buy new clothes, I always try to think if they would be work appropriate. Because let's be honest, I spend most of my week at work and when I'm home I like to be comfy in pajamas or shorts so I feel that I will get the most wear out of my clothes if I can somehow wear them to work. We have a fairly strict dress code (no jeans, no capri pants, no skirts or dresses without stockings! I know.. what era are we in?, no sleeveless shirts etc) but we don't have a uniform which means coming up with an outfit every day can get old, quickly. For the past year since starting my job I have basically worn the same black pants from Gap (I have two of the exact same pair of pants) with varied tops that I re-wear from week to week and occasionally I'll wear a pair of looser fittings harem style pants when the weather is unbearably humid. Wow - the variety - I can barely contain myself. But for some reason (think other people at work wearing skirts and dresses without stockings - gasp! and the intense heat), I decided to be a little bolder and wear a dress. The problem was I didn't really have a work appropriate dress to wear. I don't have too many to begin with but the ones I did have were either too casual or too high over the knee or just not right. The gateway was really wearing a skirt one Friday and realising how much more comfortable I was in the humidity. It was all downhill from there and last weekend I decided on a sneaky Sunday night trip downtown to see what H&M could offer me. The shop was open until 9pm which was perfect - it wasn't so crowded, it was a little cooler, and I felt kind of bad-ass for shopping later on a Sunday night (I know, I'm a grandma!). 

I instagrammed this picture from my trip, but now I want to show you my bounty - and to reiterate that I have once again fallen in love with the idea of wearing a dress. If you're allergic to dresses, you may want to click away ;)

A tiger, a leopard, a panther, a cheetah? Who knows?

So yes, it's official, I'm obsessed with the dress and bar the blue one, I wore each of these dresses to work this week with a cropped cardi and some pretty pumps from Tieks to up the professionalism.  Hope that wasn't too much dress overload or schmodelling (that was not the intention) but I did warn you to look away if it's not your thang!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day, summer or winter ;) Goodbye from Mila and I!