Iced Tea?

I was reading this thread http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1350398 and it got me to thinking that I'm paying way too much for the convenience of bottled teas. I'd like to make some "sweet tea" this summer and am asking for your favorite recipe and method of making it in quantities less than a gallon.

I know that tea is easy to make. But did you ever know people who had the knack for making it smooth, sweet and "just right"? Well, that's not me. Not me at all!

I sweeten it with Splenda, so its a low-cal version, but here's how I make it:

I use 3 tea bags. Sometimes I use 3 Constant Comment Decaffeinated bags, sometimes I use 1 Luzianne teabag + 2 Jasmine tea bags, to 1 gallon of Spring Water. I will tie the strings of the tea bags together and loop around the handle of the saucepan, then pour in as much of the gallon of water as your saucepan will hold. Bring the water & teabags to a simmer-- don't let it get to a rolling boil, as the tea will turn bitter.

In a 1 gallon plastic pitcher, I put 1-1/4 cups of Splenda. Pour the hot brewed tea over the Splenda and stir. Keep the tea bags tied to your saucepan handle. Pour the rest of your gallon of Spring Water into your saucepan, and again bring to a simmer. Pour the balance of the brewed tea into your pitcher.

I usually let the sweetened tea sit on the counter for a little while, with the lid off, until it cools down significantly before I put it in the fridge to cool.

Yummy! low-cal sweetened tea. It tastes very 'clean'. Not like the powder varieties, or the kind you get in bottles. And its MUCH cheaper! :hi: (I like your smilies drinking tea!!)

And using the tea bags for a second steeping in fresh water. Okay! Thanks so much ld.

take a 1 quart pyrex measuring cup, fill with water

add 1 "family size" teabag or 6 regular size

Microwave 6 minutes.


Let the teabags sit in the hot water for another couple of minutes, but not too long as it will bitter the tea


Add sweetener of your choice at this time. Stir to dissolve throughly. Sweeten to YOUR taste, of course. I like about 1/4 cup sugar myself, which really isn't that much in calories or sweetness, but my Granny would have put in about a cup LOL her tea was black as coffee and sweet as Coke and would perk you up good on a HOT DAY>

Put the warm tea in a 2 quart pitcher, and fill the pyrex back up with another quart of cold water, with the teabags still in it. squeeze the cool teabags out into this second quart of water. Toss the teabags and add the cool water to the hot in your big pitcher. Cool in fridge.

OR you can add only an extra 2 cups water and pour the tea directly over ice in the glasses.

Lemon is nice with this.

YOu can sweeten sun tea if you add the sugar/sweetener when the tea is still warm from the sun. Sugar will NOT dissolve in cold tea. Sweetnlow will but I hate the stuff.

I'll use this method, too. Our microwave is not large or powerful. So I guess we won't have to worry too much about it coming to a bad boil in six minutes.

Your granny sounds like a kick!

the room. Her coffee was so strong you had to cut it with scissors when your cup was full. I was in her old house after it was all emptied out, she had not lived there for three years ...and it still smelled like strong coffee. She actually made her tea with loose tea leaves which she strained. I never saw her use a tea bag.

She had very dark thick hair and it was only just beginning to gray out at oh say 95 or so. Seriously.

I am named for her and my other grandmother.

She loved a good joke, and she loved a good pie. No slice of pie was safe if Granny was around.

There were six grand children altogether, we all went to the same high school. My youngest sister's children went to school with the children of two of our cousins.
The last time we were all together, we laughed so much we made ourselves sick. Politically and in every other way we are on six different parts of the map but that is OK, we still manage to have a great time together.

I perfected my microwave tea recipe in an older microwave; a 650 watt model. I just use a lower power in my new one. Works just fine.

Enjoy!!!!

I usually put a 1/4 tub or peach or lemonade crystal light in mine.. sweetens it a bit and makes it yummy.

iced tea, I usually throw a bag or two of green tea in the boiling water for the anti-oxidants (it's a mental thing; makes me think I'm doing something good for myself, even though I know tea by itself has that).

I measure my tea into a teapot and boil my whistling kettle until it screams. I then pour the boiling water over the tea and seep for 3-5 minutes

add 1TBSP of sugar per quart of finished tea (the amount you'll have AFTER you add the cool water) and stir in til it melts then add an equal part cool water and refrigerate

serve with ice and lemon wedge if available

OR

get a glass gallon jar, fill with clean water and 8 teabags and cover tightly. Set in a sunny place 4-6 hours

Too much and it becomes sugar drink with some tea in it. But I have to admit that every once in a while I go overboard. I seem to like a lot of sugar in my hot tea when I have Chinese food. Go figure.

When we used to make iced tea a lot, we made it prety much like this. Its completely fool proof.

You may need to adjust both the number of tea bags and any sweetener you use, but once a good formula is found, the recipe is reliably repeatable.

http://coffeetea.about.com/cs/teabrewing/ht/ht_suntea.htm

I'd like to try this. And if I make a smaller amount for just the one day and pop it in the fridge, I'll be on the safe side as politcat suggested. Sun teas are supposed to be very smooth. And if there's one thing we have a lot of, it's sun. God do we have sun!

Any more than that is a waste of sugar. The theory of diminishing returns strikes. Teaspoon one balances out any bitterness in the tea, while teaspoon two adds sweetness. More than that, and the sugar doesn't really add anything except calories and make the drink sticky, and it makes it harder for the tea to do the job of hydrating. If you want liquid sugar, that's what Torani syrup is for. The whole point of iced tea is that it provides a mild caffeine kick which improves the metabolism and helps the body cope with stressors, while dumping a lot of water in to improve hydration, and the fact that it's cool helps regulate core temperature. (Good grief, I know too much about food and beverage biology.) Sugar requires a lot of water to metabolize, messes with blood glucose levels and is really pretty hard on the kidneys.

But why ruin any good tea with sugar? I mean good, not Lipton. Trundle your hiney down to the closest place that sells Republic of Tea tea either loose or in bags and get a 2 L pitcher that will fit in your microwave. Get the Mango Ceylon if you like mango or one of the mints if you like mint, or see if there's something else that catches your fancy. (The only ones I don't recommend for iced are the citrus ones because they get bitter really fast.) Put 3 quarts of water or 1.7 liters of water in the pitcher, dump four teabags or 4 teaspoons of tea stapled inside a coffee filter in the water. Microwave on high for 7 minutes for a standard 1000 watt microwave, or until the water boils/gets to 195/whatever your altitude determined boiling temp is. You can also use an electric kettle or the stove, but the micro is the fastest. Let stand 30 minutes, pull the bags if you're fastidious or leave 'em if you're lazy and like it strong, and add ice to bring the level to 2 L. Pour over more ice. Refrigerate if you don't plan to drink it within 24 hours (not a problem around here - I go through almost a gallon of tea a day.)

If you MUST add sugar, add it when the tea is hot, and add sparingly. Better bets are agave (sub 1/2 tsp to 1 tsp sugar) or crystaline fructose (not HFCS) at 1/4 to 1 ratio. (Fructose is 2-3 times sweeter than sugar, so you need a lot less.) Splenda works really well in iced tea. Or mix your tea half and half with prepared lemonade for an Arnold Palmer (don't sugar the tea if you do that and use a good frozen lemonade concentrate. Not Country time or Koolaid.)

I make this one often, it's a variation from one of Emeril's recipes.

3 c boiling water pour over
2 large black or orange tea bags (or 6 small ones)
2 small spiced tea bags (I use Good Earth cinnamon spice tea)

Steep 8 - 10 minutes then remove tea bags

Add 1/2 c sugar and stir
Add 5 1/2 c cold water
add 1 1/2 c orange juice (strained if its pulpy)
add 2 tbls fresh lemon juice

Stir & chill

Pour into glasses filled with ice, garnish with lemon or orange wedges and mint.

Delicious!

I can see it having a perk-me-up effect. I think this is going to be fun!

Don't make it. Boil the water. The sun can't get the water hot enough to kill any lingering bacteria on the tea leaves, and those bacteria absolutely love the warm, humid place that a sun tea jar provides, and while UV is a great sanitizer, glass and plastic sun tea jars block that UV light. Tea is a natural product, and as such, it will always have some bacteria on the leaves. Most tea comes from India and China, where most people are exposed to more disease and bacteria in a year than we westerners will be exposed to in a decade. We just don't live in such close quarters, we don't have their poverty and our sanitation systems are not nearly as overloaded as theirs are. We westerners don't have the immune systems to be safely exposed to night-soil compost, sewage fertilizer, and the 6 billion germs that end up in a pound of tea. Not India's or China's fault -- we're the ones that have cleaned ourselves into a corner.

So make sure those leaves boil. This is especially important for anyone with a compromised immune system. If you must drink sun tea, promptly refrigerate it and don't keep it more than 8 hours.

I suppose that with all that bacteria on dry tea leaves, it would be a good ting to keep it sealed up tight.

And yes, you sure do know a lot - in general! Thanks!

Which definitely sucks sometimes.

roach motel ... :rofl:

but this is how I make it.

Heat a kettle of water until it boils. Turn off the heat.

Put in two tea bags (whatever type you want, but I usually just use cheap, regular black tea) and let steep for a few minutes.

Pour a few inches of room-temperature water in the bottom of a pitcher, then pour the hot tea down into the water. Don't forget to add the room-temperature water and don't let the tea run down the side of the pitcher---it will crack. Check the color of the tea and add some more water if it's too dark (keep in mind that the ice you add later will weaken the tea).

(This is when you would sweeten it if you wanted to. I stopped drinking sweet tea because it was too much trouble---I could never get it just right. After a few weeks I realized that I didn't even like it sweet anymore. Soon after that, my mom stopped sweetening it out of consideration for me and had the same experience---now we both drink unsweetened tea.)

Pour the tea into glasses full of ice and serve, adding squeezes of fresh lemon or lime if you want them.

Don't refrigerate the tea or keep it for too long or it will taste old and stale---in other words, like bottled tea. Just make a new batch the next day.

If you want to make smaller batches, just boil less water and use only one tea bag.

i think i'll be making small batches. easy enough to make some in the morning for the day.

Neither do I. I use Red Label loose tea, one tsp. for each "serving", plus one for the pot. Bring kettle to rolling boil. Pour over loose leaves and steep for about 10 min. Strain into glass pitcher. Run cold water into the teapot over the hot tea leaves, then pour over the rose bushes.

A funny story: My son, Carl, and his his wife went to have dinner with dinner with their newly-wed friends. The new bride said, "Carl, we know you like unsweetened tea, but I didn't know how to make it. I asked (new hubby's name) and he didn't know how to make it either."

I prefer brewing a pot of Paradise tropical tea and drinking it on ice.

And that is a funny story about your son's friends not knowing about unsweetened tea!

I make this all the time for my son, who loves sweet tea. He was born in South Carolina, and spent the first two years of his life there, and they just about wean their children on sweet tea down there. Every time we went to a restaurant, it was pretty much expected that we would order 'sweet tea' for the baby.

Anyway:

Start with a simple syrup of 1c.sugar and 1c.water. Bring to a boil, remove from heat, let cool.
Bring 1 qt. water to a boil, take it off the heat and steep 4 black tea bags or 6 green tea bags for ten minutes.
Pour the simple syrup and steeped tea into a two qt. pitcher. Fill the remainder of the pitcher with ice water and cool in the refrigerator.

It's really an old fashioned way to do it, and it takes a bit longer to render that truly smooth, "iced" sweet tea, but I think its worth the time.

-chef-

i'll definitely try this method. nice that it calls for green tea as well. i can see my mornings starting out making some different teas this summer in smallish batches.

I think sun tea is a good way to go for making a gallon or slightly under a gallon of tea w/o working too hard. If bacteria is a concern, you can always heat the tea to almost but not quite boiling after it is made. That should kill any live organisms. The tea doesn't taste quite as smooth by heating it, but it is still really good tasting. Anyway, if you are going to add sugar or sweetening, you'd have to heat it a little to dissolve the sugar. Another possibility would be to microwave the tea leaves b4 making sun tea. I am partial to sun tea, think it tastes better, and is also fun to make.

So I bought the $20 Mr. Coffee Iced Tea Maker. (Now they're on sale at Costco less than that, of course!)

It can make 1, 2, or 3 quarts at a time, though I never make less than 3. My wife (a native Southerner) and I guzzle it like no other beverage.

Now you're supposed to put a family-sized tea bag in the steeper for every quart you make, but I found that wasn't quite strong enough. So I put in 4 bags to make 3 quarts.

Just fill the reservoir and turn it on. I also further tweak it by draining the steeper a few times during the brewing process, that seems like it extracts even more tea flavor. I sweeten the 3 quarts with about 3/4 cup of sugar. I like mine sweet.

Seriously though, an iced tea maker really takes a lot of the variables out of making tea. I love ours.

I think my Aunt bought this back in the 1930's..anyway..I bring water to a boil and put the bags in after I turn the fire OFF..put the lid on and LEAVE IT ON until the pan is cool to the touch.. It makes a VERY strong concentrate, with I then use by the glass..Just a little goes a LONG way..

We do not sweeten iced tea, but you could certainly sweeten if you like :)

an aside.. I also have a stainless mixing bowl she gave me that it takes TWO hands to manage..It;s that heavy gauge....modern stainless is downright "tinny"..