Cooking & Baking
Related: About this forumCold Brew Coffee and Sun Tea Iced Tea Recipe
Bit of a basic one this week. We made cold brew coffee and sun tea to make iced tea with! It's been deliriously hot here, so we wanted some nice cool drinks. Also, we've got a video on tiramisu coming up, and we used the cold brew instead of espresso to flavour the ladyfingers.
The nice thing about both of these methods is that the slower extraction with the lower temperatures means your end result will be smoother and you will avoid any of the strong bitter and acidic off flavours from oversteeping. We tend to make both of these pretty strong, because we like to pour them over a bunch of ice, and as the ice melts, it will dilute your drink a bit. You can also make coffee or iced tea tea bags.
You can sweeten these with a little bit of simple syrup or maple syrup if you like. The cold brew coffee can also take a bit of milk of cream if that's how you prefer it. You can also add some fancier teas to the sun tea, and you can buy those do-it-yourself teabags and loose tea.
AllaN01Bear
(18,827 posts), let steep for several hours and presto. sun tea. havnt done that in years .
Saviolo
(3,284 posts)We usually make a huge batch of it if we're having people over for a summer party, and put it on one of those big Brita water filter tanks (without the filter of course) with a spigot, so people can just serve themselves.
Kali
(55,032 posts)3 family size bags in summer for a couple hours, 4 in winter most of the day, between a 1/2 and 3/4 cup of sugar before refrigerating.we can go through 2 gallons per day if there are no sodas in the house. I try to avoid those (though I love them) but since the others quit drinking I do buy for them.
Saviolo
(3,284 posts)but it's totally a personal taste sort of thing. I'm not a coffee drinker, but hubby drinks the cold brew with some cream in it. Otherwise we prefer them plain!
Warpy
(111,467 posts)I do suggest using a glass jar for sun tea and cleaning it with bleach every few batches. Apparently some rather nasty intestinal bugs have been traced to the hard to clean taps in official sun tea brewers and jars in constant use.
Sun tea, however, is wonderful stuff.
(Can't speak for the coffee, it all tastes like battery acid to me)
Saviolo
(3,284 posts)We just pour it in there to serve it if we're having a get together. Fill it with ice and sun tea and let people serve themselves, and it gets a serious cleaning after use. This is a once in a while sort of thing. If we're just making it for ourselves, it is just a glass jar with a good seal.
yellowdogintexas
(22,292 posts)My husband is a Diet Dr addict but he will drink my tea at least part of the time
Saviolo
(3,284 posts)And super easy to make. Pop it in a sunny corner and forget it for a few hours!
NJCher
(35,835 posts)snip
The researchers found that one plastic tea bag released about 11.6 billion microplastic and 3.1 billion nanoplastic particles into brewing-temperature water.
"These levels were thousands of times higher than those reported previously in other foods," according to a statement from the American Chemical Society.
snip
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tea-bags-may-release-microplastics-into-your-cup-of-tea-scientists-say/
Here's a list of plastic free teabags, but since this report, some mfrs have lowered or gotten rid of the microplastics in their teabags, so Google yours to find out. Also, another thing you can do is simply take the tea out of the bag and brew it without the bag. Use a strainer to remove the tea grounds.
15 plastic-free teabags
Saviolo
(3,284 posts)When I make tea, it's typically loose leaf. I've got a tea pot with an integrated metal strainer, and I just put the loose tea in there to steep, works like a dream. For the sun tea, we sometimes even get those fill-your-own tea bags, and use some nice tea in them instead of the sweepings you usually find in tea bags. I'll have to keep an eye out for some plastics-free tea bags for future brewings.
Though sun tea does not use brewing-temperature water, so hopefully that has reduced my potential exposure over time.