Vietnamese Iced Tea (Tra Chanh Hanoi) - Low Sugar

Vietnamese Iced Tea with Lime (Tra Chanh Hanoi) is a refreshing, crisp drink for hot summer days. Cooling iced green tea is paired with fragrant limes, crunchy sugar, and lots of crushed ice.

Jump to:

• Why You'll Love This Recipe
• What is Vietnamese Iced Tea?
• Ingredients in Viet Lime Iced Tea
• What Kind of Tea is Best?
• Expert Tips for the Best Viet Iced Tea
• Is Lime or Lemon Better in Tea?
• What Flavours Go Well with Lime?
• Recipe
• One response to “Vietnamese Iced Tea (Tra Chanh Hanoi) - Low Sugar”

Why You'll Love This Recipe

• Healthy and low-sugar. This Tra Chanh Hanoi is made with just green tea (hello, antioxidants!), lime juice, and sugar (or honey)! You can easily customize it to be as low sugar as you'd like. In fact, you can leave it sugar free.
• Easy to make large batches. Whip up a huge jug for family parties in under 5 minutes.
• Simple ingredients. No speciality ingredients needed...everything you have is probably at home already.

Other Viet Drinks for Hot Days

• Soda Chanh (effervescent limey bubbly goodness)
• Viet Limeade (a classic, zingy drink to pair with fried food!)
• Viet Iced Coffee (for the coffee fanatic)
• Creamy Avocado Shake (tastes like healthy ice cream..yes, really)

What is Vietnamese Iced Tea?

Vietnamese Iced Tea, also known as tra da or tra chanh da Hanoi, is a popular drink with origins in the city of Hanoi. It's an icy-cold green tea sweetened with sugar and tons of juicy lime wedges stirred into it. It's also served with tons of crushed iced cubes.

Like Vietnamese Soda Chanh and Limemade, Tra da is a refreshing drink for hot summer days. The cold green tea offers a soothing and cleansing aroma while the lime adds zingy freshness to wake you up!

Ingredients in Viet Lime Iced Tea

• FRESH limes - important to use it instead of bottled lime juice since the fragrance from lime peels adds essential flavour and a pretty look when serving.
• Green tea - bagged tea is easier to steep but feel free to use loose lead green tea for a bolder flavour.
• White sugar - regular white sugar is fine, or use honey/agave nectar for added vitamins.

What Kind of Tea is Best?

I strongly suggest loose leaf green tea because it provides the most bold and clean-tasting tea flavour to the drink. Using bagged green tea works in a pinch (makes steeping easier) but the flavour is usually a bit more stale.

You can alternatively use black tea or white tea. I don't recommend matcha because the colour will look muddled for this specific recipe.

I recommend using decaf tea so you don't have to worry about being up all night from the caffeine in this iced tea. On the flip side, if you're a student, maybe you might want fully caffeinated tea to get through exams!

Expert Tips for the Best Viet Iced Tea

• Brew extra strong tea since the crushed ice will dilute the flavour as it melts
• Rim the glass with white sugar to impress your guests
• This drink works as an amazing morning wake-me-up - leave the sugar out and serve as just a refreshing lime cold green tea.
• Use decaf tea if guests are sensitive to caffeine (or if you plan to serve it in the evening)

Is Lime or Lemon Better in Tea?

There's a negligible difference between adding limes or lemons to tea. Lemons have slightly higher Vitamin C content, but limes provide a sweeter aroma flavour-wise. Also, Vietnamese cuisine usually uses limes over lemons (geographic growing conditions) so limes are definitely "better" if we're talking about authenticity.

What Flavours Go Well with Lime?

Mint, basil, lemon, and orange go well with lime. Add these herbs or a squeeze of oranges/lemon to this refreshing drink to add an extra twist of flavour!

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