 Hey guys, it's Jess, and welcome back to Brain Food, the show where I show you guys how to make some really easy, quick, and healthy study snack ideas. So in today's video, I'm going to show you guys one of my favorite teas to make. It's a Focus and Refresh tea. You can either make it as an iced tea as I'm going to show you today, or actually serve it really nice and hot, especially if it's getting cooler wherever you are in the world. So there's two parts to today's video. The first thing I'm going to show you guys how to make awesome ice cubes to add to your iced tea. It's really simple. So I'm going to take my tray over here, my ice cube tray, and I'm going to fill it up with some water, as well as a little bit of mint and also some lavender petals. So I love adding mint and lavender. I think that they're so fragrant, but they're also really refreshing. So I'm going to pour in some water into these molds. And this is, of course, if you want to make the colder iced version of this tea. And I'm doing my best not to spill it, but of course it is spilling on the counter. Just can't help myself, can I? Okay, there we go. That's fine. It's only water, it's easy to clean up. Okay, so now I'm going to take some mint leaves and I'm just going to tear them up and put just a little piece or a couple pieces into each little section of the ice cube tray. And then I'm going to do the same with the lavender petals as well. Okay, so there's the mint and now I'm going to take my little sprigs of lavender and don't tell my neighbour. I actually walked over there and picked some of his lavender because I don't have any and I didn't know where to buy some. So I thought, well, sharing is caring, right? Hopefully he didn't notice, but if he did, my apologies. Okay, so I'm adding just a couple of petals into each of the little cubes. And it just makes it look so pretty. I love the combination of green and purple. I think it's really nice and really summery as well. Now, I usually leave these in the freezer probably for about four hours so that they do set and they're able to pop out of the molds really easily as well. But of course, you can even make it overnight so that they're definitely set in time. Okay, so now I'm going to take my little ice cube tray and I'm going to pop it in the freezer and then in a couple hours it will be ready to add to our ice tea. Okay, now I'm actually going to, for all of the mint that we're brewing, pop it into this little compartment here so that it stays out of the water so it doesn't actually end up in your tea when you're drinking it. And I'm just going to pop actually quite a lot of mint in there. I love taking a nice big chunk and then just kind of rubbing it in between your hands and smelling it. It just makes all of that smell come out in the aroma. It's really nice and strong and it's so refreshing. So mint is also good if you're stressed and you've got a bit of an upset stomach as well. It's got a really calming effect. So I'm going to put, I'm putting a ton of mint into my tea today. Mind you, I'm not that stressed, I promise, but I do really love the taste of mint. So I've packed this little guy up all the way with mint. Now into the actual water to brew, I'm going to add one flat tablespoon of brown sugar. Just to sweeten it, give it a little bit of flavour. So I'm going to pour that into the hot water. Now I'm pouring it into the hot water so that it does dissolve and mix through. And then take your half a lemon and squeeze all of that into this hot water as well. Now once you've added that, you're going to give it a little bit of a stir just to make sure that that brown sugar does dissolve and it's doing it really nice. It actually looks really like, looks like that golden honey colour. I love that. So I would say that's, yeah, that's mixed through really nice. It's done perfectly. Okay, now I'm going to add the peppermint into the teapot and then I'm going to add the little plunger and make sure that that peppermint does brew really nicely in there. And I'm going to leave it to sit probably just a couple of minutes. It doesn't need that long, maybe five minutes. And after that we're going to make the rest of the mixture for our tea. Okay, so I think the tea has brewed really nicely here. The mint has started to wilt. Now because I'm making an iced tea, I've got, I actually emptied a little bit of the water because it got a little bit too full. I've got half a jug of cold water and I'm going to pour this mixture into the bottle of water and that's going to go into the fridge with some fresh mint as well. So I'm going to pour this beautiful warm peppermint brown sugar and lemon tea into this bottle and I've just added the cold water just so that it chills a little bit faster rather than having to wait for all of that hot water to cool. Okay, now that that's added, I'm going to take some more of my beautiful fresh mint and I'm going to honestly just shove it into the bottle because it is quite a narrow opening. So if you've got a wider opening jug, that's probably going to work a little bit better. Now I'm adding the mint into this bottle because if I would have kept it in the teapot, it's wilted, it's going to grow that funny brown colour. So adding the mint into the cooler temperature water, it just means it's going to stay that nice, vibrant green. So I'm going to pop a little bit more of the mid-leaves in there and also a couple of sprigs of the little leaves as well. That's going to be really nice. And then pop the top on, give it a bit of a shake. Yum! And then I'm going to pop it in the fridge for about half an hour and this will be ready but we'll wait for the ice cubes to harden as well. Okay, the ice cubes are frozen and our tea is nice and cold. So moment of truth, guys. Let's pop some of these ice cubes out of the tray and I'm going to put them into this glass and serve up some delicious, refreshing and focused iced tea. This looks so nice. How pretty is that? I love how the little lavender petals just really add some nice colour and vibrance in this tea. And honestly, this is one of my favourite teas to make both in winter and summer because you can serve it hot or cold and it's beautiful as a way. So cheers, guys! That is so yum and it's sweet, it's zesty, it's refreshing and you can smell the beautiful aromas of the lavender and the mint and love it. So if you guys enjoyed today's video, then thumbs up and also make sure if you do recreate this recipe at home that you take a photo and upload it on to social media. Just tag me at Studdy with Jess or you can use the hashtag at Studdy with Jess and I'd love to see them. Also, if you guys aren't already subscribed, then click the subscribe button down below so you don't miss out on more of my videos. I am posting up my study tip videos on Wednesday and Friday but make sure to stay tuned for the next episode of Brain Food which will be up next Monday. Alright guys, have a very happy and productive week and of course, remember, that food is fuel. Love you guys, bye!