Paraben Free Herbal Arnold Palmer with Fresh Herbs
This drink is a serious upgrade on a classic summer sipper, layering the brightness of fresh lemon with a deeply aromatic herbal tea built from mint, basil, and optional lavender. Squeezing your own lemons and steeping real herbs means every ingredient is exactly what it says it is — no mystery additives, no synthetic preservatives hiding in a bottle of store-bought mix. That matters more than most people realize, since flavored syrups and pre-made lemonades are common sources of parabens used as preservatives. Here, the simple syrup is just sugar and water, cooked down in minutes on your stovetop and completely within your control. The herbal tea steeps quickly and strains clean, giving you a gorgeous amber base with a floral, garden-fresh complexity that black tea alone just can't deliver. Poured over ice in equal parts with the lemonade, it's refreshing, a little sophisticated, and genuinely beautiful in the glass with a sprig of mint and a lemon wheel on the rim. This is the kind of drink you make once and then find yourself craving all season long.
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Learn more →Ingredients
4 servings
For the herbal tea
- 4 cups water, divided
- 3 black tea bags
- ½ cup fresh mint leaves, lightly packed
- ¼ cup fresh basil leaves, lightly packed
- 1 tbsp dried culinary lavender (optional)
For the simple syrup
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup water
For the lemonade
- ¾ cup fresh lemon juice (from about 4–5 lemons)
- 1 ½ cups cold water
For serving
- ice, for serving
- fresh mint sprigs, for serving (optional)
- lemon slices, for serving (optional)
Instructions
- 1
Bring 2 cups of the water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Remove from the heat, add the tea bags, mint leaves, basil leaves, and dried lavender (if using), and steep for 5 minutes.
- 2
Remove and discard the tea bags. Strain the tea through a fine-mesh strainer into a pitcher, pressing the herbs gently to extract their liquid, then discard the solids. Stir in the remaining 2 cups of cold water and let the tea cool to room temperature, about 20 minutes.
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