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In summer, iced tea is an excellent choice of beverage. It's cool, refreshing and easy to make. While some may like sweet tea or even sun tea the best, I prefer to make mine fairly plain and start it on the stovetop.
One of the most common mistakes with iced tea is that the tea leaves are brewed for too long, which causes the tea to become bitter. The best brewing strategy is to increase the amount of tea or the number of tea bags you use, while keeping the steeping time the same as you would for one cup.
Start on the stovetop with only a cup or two of water. Once it comes to a boil, turn off the heat and add in three or four times the normal amount of tea leaves/bags you use for a cup or two. Once they have steeped for several minutes, remove the bags and stir in your desired amount of sugar (or other sweetener). Using hot water will allow the sugar to dissolve quickly and easily, not to mention that a small amount of water will both heat up an cool down faster than boiling a whole pitcher's worth. Add cold water after the sugar is dissolved to dilute the strong tea and cool the drink down. Top of with some ice and refrigerate until ready to drink - or enjoy right away, since it should be a nice, cool temperature already.
If you're in a time crunch, Lipton's Iced Tea Teabags - which brew in cold water in minutes - are always nice to have on standby.
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7-08-2006 @11:43AM rainey said... I drink a quart of iced tea most days and in the summer my family joins me so we go through a couple. So I use Lipton Cold Brew bags (available at Ralphs and probably other stores in SoCal). They must be similar to the ones you link to. They're very large bags so just 2 will brew a quart in cold water in 10 minutes and if I forget and let them go 15 I haven't noticed bitterness.
I'm sure it's "sweepings" of cheaper black tea and I doubt I'd be interested in these bags as hot tea. But when it's drunk cold the harder notes fade and it does the trick. Besides, really good or great tea would be wasted on something I drink by the quart.
I would *never* sweeten iced tea with sugar. Personally, I'd rather have unsweetened tea — hot or cold. And if I want it sweetened, as for an Arnie Palmer, for instance, I use Splenda, myself. So I recommend also preparing a sugar syrup for my friends who *do* want sweetened. You can add up to 4 parts sugar for one part of very hot water and keep it on hand in the fridge for up to a week.
For a great Arnie Palmer take a large piece of zest from half a lemon and twist it over a glass of ice to release the oil. Dump it in the glass (zest won't add the bitterness over time that a piece of lemon with it's pith would). Squeeze in the juice through a small strainer. Add iced tea and sugar syrup or sweetener to taste.
The only way — short of a Margarita — to get through a SoCal summer.
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7-08-2006 @3:38PM John B said... I would never make sun tea. My father used to work at a tea processing plant. He said salmonella can contaminate tea. I always use boiling water.
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7-08-2006 @7:29PM Nicole Fitzhugh said... Thank you, Rainey, for pointing out that not all iced tea needs to be sweetened. However, I have to say that there's no waste involved in drinking good tea, hot or cold, by the cup or the quart. I *love* iced earl grey, and in fact Twinings even provides a recipe. I adapted it to Safeway's EG and it's yummy. Unsweetened.
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7-08-2006 @7:41PM rainey said... Nicole- Let's keep up the good fight! I travel Western Canada trying to convert them to the sugar syrup option.
They think unsweetened ice tea is a completely bizarre concept and, yet, they'd never consider serving you coffee that had already had sugar and cream added. Go figure...
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7-10-2006 @10:56AM Brian said... I have had a "The Iced Tea Pot" by Mr Coffee for about 9 years now and swear by it. It makes the same exact sweet tea every time and I have the recipe perfected. Heaven.
Brian
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7-31-2006 @12:01PM Nikhil said... Thanks Nicole for the excellent post. I've been drinking iced green tea all summer, and highly recommend it. Another great party idea is Cranberry Vodka Iced Tea.
http://www.thesimpleleaf.com/learn/learn.main.asp?idPage=iced#cranberry
Nikhil
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