Iced Tea Doesn’t Come From a Can

Posted by Somer on April 15th, 2009 at 7:50 pm

I am horrified to see people popping open aluminum cans of “Iced Tea” or even worse, making cans of powdered “Iced Tea.”  And those fancy brand names who serve their teas in bottles are just robbing you.  You can easily make a gallon of iced tea….proper iced tea,  for pennies.  Just buy yourself a box of plain tea bags (100 tea bags).  I also like to buy a smaller box of flavored tea (my two favorites are chai tea and peach-flavored tea) so that you can lightly flavor your iced tea.

You want 10 tea bags for this recipe.  If you choose to add a flavored tea, it’s 9 regular tea bags and 1 flavored tea bag.  The flavoring will be really light and sweet and people will sit and sip the tea asking what that flavor is.

Take the tea bags out of their outer wrappers and throw the bags into a large bowl.  Pour 8 cups of boiling water over the tea bags and make sure all of them are steeping.  Let the tea steep for 10 minutes.

The liquid will be very dark and will have a pleasant aroma.  Remove the tea bags with a spoon, making sure to squeeze any liquid out of them.

Now for this to be Iced Tea, it has to be served cold.  You can certainly just pour this into your pitcher now and dillute it with cold water and have cold iced tea in 2 hours OR you can fill your 1 gallon pitcher 3/4 of the way full with ice and then add the undilluted liquid, melting the ice and cooling the liquid.  Stir to melt the ice thoroughly and then add enough water to reach the 1 gallon mark on your pitcher.

You’ll notice at this point that I have not mentioned any sort of sweeteners.  I know you can add like a bajillion cups of sugar and then you’ll have Southern Sweet Tea (and no teeth) or you can leave the liquid in the pitcher unsweetened.  I buy those little yellow packets of artificial sweetener and add 1 packet to my glass and it sweetens the tea just enough without making the brew taste like syrup.  If you like Southern Sweet Tea, then by all means add a bajillion cups of sugar.  Me?  I’ll stick with the one packet.

The end product is a truly refreshing drink that my husband and I both love to drink in the warmer months.  It’s real Iced Tea and it’s cheaper and better than that other stuff.  Give it a try, thank me later.