Tracey - very simply put: Boil 1 qt. of water, pour over 2 family-size tea bags (or 5-6 small tea bags). Let it steep for 15-20 minutes. Pour into pitcher. Add 1 qt. of water. Stir in the amount of sugar you like (I use about 3/4 cup). Stir well. That's it.

I used to have one of those tea makers and it's convenient when we go camping. Otherwise, I just make it the old-fashioned way.

If you have a big glass jar with a lid you can make sun tea. On a hot sunny day put the jar full of water and however many tea bags you want to use out in the sunshine. Let it sit for a few hours till it's as dark as you like, and there you have it.

I kind of know how you feel, though. The other day we had company over for dinner, and I wanted to make some tea to serve, but our sun tea jar, that came with a spigot at the bottom, leaked, so I had thrown it out last summer. I was a bit stumped as to how to make tea without a glass jar. lol DH came to the rescue, since he knew how to boil water!

Sally

I have been on a mission to make good brewed tea (I Freecycled my Mr Coffee tea maker). When reorganizing my pantry and cabinets, I found tea bags, family sized tea bags, loose apricot tea, loose raspberry tea, Thai tea bags, loose cranberry, instant tea, instant flavored tea, green tea, white tea, to mention a few. Most were old but still sealed.

It's been three months since recognizing my tea hording problem and I have been making one or two pitchers every day and still have a health supply from which to experiment. I have been using a French Press with the boil water and steep method. My only suggestion would be to add a pinch of baking soda added to the tea prior to adding the water; this eliminates the bitterness.

This thread is helpful.

Here is a link that might be useful: Southern Sweet Tea

I just boil water in my 4 cup pyrex measuring cup, add 4 family sized tea bags, let it sit for 5 or 6 minutes and pour over ice.
I don't want sugar in it but if I did I would add sugar with the water when I bring it to a boil in the microwave.
Linda C

Tracy, I drink iced tea all year round. Although I live in the South I use sweet and low instead of sugar. I do have a jar of simple syrup in the fridge for guests that like it sweet. Here is my method, I have to add, I like my tea strong! I take about a gallon of water bring to a gentle boil, add 12-13 tea bags and let steep about 8-10 hours!
Gina

Iced tea is my drink of choice all year round and there's always a pitcher of it in the refrigerator, and also usually a jar of tea concentrate for the next one.

I bring about 1 1/2 cups of water with enough sugar to sweeten a pitcherful to a boil in a small saucepan. When it's boiling, I add enough loose tea for a pitcher, remove from the heat, and let it steep for 5 minutes.

Then I strain the mixture into a pint jar, cool to room temperature, and store in the refrigerator. When my current pitcher is empty, I pour in the tea concentrate and fill it with water.

If I need it right away, I strain the tea directly into a pitcher half filled with cold water and then add water to fill it.

I make 2 to 4 cups of tea concentrate and keep it in a recycled plastic (pourable) 32-oz. flavored coffee creamer container in the refrigerator, then use it to make iced tea a glass-at-a-time. I don't have to take up room in the refrigerator with a pitcher of tea that way, and we each can have it the strength we like.

Tea Concentrate:

2 cups boiling water + 5-6 regular-sized tea bags
Let steep.

I use approx. 2-ounces per iced tea glass, plus water and ice.

My FRUGAL method:
I keep the bags I make hot tea with in a small container in the freezer. When I need to make tea concentrate, I dump them in with one or two fresh teabags using 4-cups boiling water; let steep. This method works well if you like to make "flavored" tea. The used-once bags plus a couple of your favorite flavored teas.

I have an elderly friend who laughed at making "sun tea" when it became all the rage years ago, because she's always made "refrigerator tea". She added tea bags to a gallon of water and placed it in the refrigerator - an overnight soak and she had TEA. No steeping, no sunning....

I guess the lesson is - dry tea leaves + water = liquid tea. ;-)

-Grainlady

I just put a handful of regular tea bags in a pan or other large container, and add boiling water from the kettle. I wait until it has steeped (5-10 minutes) then fish out the tea bags with a slotted spoon and chill the tea in the refrigerator. When it is cool I pour the tea into a pitcher. (My pitchers are plastic and would melt if I poured boiling water in them.) Then I pour it over ice cubes and add lemon or fresh mint and if I'm in the mood, sugar.

Usually though I use an unsweetened instant powdered tea mix and add my own mint or lemon and/or sugar. Much quicker!

Iced tea is just hot tea chilled, so there isn't much to it.

This one is an interesting one. Boil your water add 7-8 Earl Grey tea bags to about 8/9 cups. Let steep until cool (remove bags) then add a can of frozen lemonade. Garnish with lime, lemons and oranges.

I also drink ice tea year round. I make it by the gallon pitcher. I use family size bags and a quart and half of water. Heat the water to boiling point put the tea bags in, put a lid on and remove from the heat. Let it sit for 10 minutes and then pour ice water to the strength you require. Sweeten with the sweetener of your choice.

A couple of thoughts.

Luzianne tea really does make wonderful iced tea. I generally don't believe advertising, but to my amazement they told the truth.

I drink both hot and iced tea and usually don't sweeten it. I used to think that the times I found it unpleasantly bitter was because I'd made it too strong. Then I discovered that if I "pre-brew" the tea in a small amount of boiling water for 15-30 seconds, discard that water and then brew the tea with fresh water, it is reliably good. It's also supposed to remove a lot of the caffeine (why I tried this method in the first place) but even decaf tea tastes better (at least to me) this way.

Great tip on the "Frugal" tea Grainlady. I'll start doing that.

I make hubby and the boys sweet tea..
I use 2 cups just boiled water, in a pyrex..let steep 5 or so minutes, pour into a gallon picture add 1.5 cups of sugar (I know insane!!!) the juice of one lemon and then and mix until sugar is melted. Then add in the rest of water to make a gallon.

They go through it like nothin...I've been backing off their sugar in their Koolaid..so gonna do that with the tea too.. LOL

I don't like sweetened tea.

I like to make iced tea adding herb teas, like Celestial Seasoning's Wild Berry Zinger, to the family size black tea bags. I boil a full pot of water in my Corningware kettle, then drop in the tea bags and brew for 5 minutes, take out the tea bags, then sweeten with part sugar/part Splenda, stir very well to dissolve the sweeteners, then cool. After the tea is cool, I pour it into a glass pitcher and add water until it is the desired strength I prefer. Luzianne does make very good iced tea as does Assam, Ceylon and Russian Caravan loose teas.

I do tend to use Luzianne exclusively but recently I had some Tetley and it was very good.

Thanks for all the great suggestions! I like the idea of making a concentrate and going from there. When we first moved to to TN, walmart carried Rose Red tea, but they don't anymore so I buy the Luzianne. When we have people over, I make fruit tea, but other than that he won't have anything to do with flavored teas. The other interesting thing I see if I'm reading the posts correctly is that there's a wide variety in how strong people like their tea. In the 3 qt iced tea maker, I used 3 family sized tea bags which I'm sure I did because that was the recommended amount. One thing I always do is make a simple syrup to sweeten the tea instead of just straight sugar. Thanks again for all the help!

Tracey

I agree about making the concentrate. That's what I do with the French press as it doesn't hold enough to make a full pitcher. I store the French press on the refridgerator door shelf, it's a small press. Then just pour the concentrate into a 24 oz Tervis tumbler, fill with dinner ice, then water.

I'm surprised that more people don't use loose tea for making iced tea.

ruthanna, I use loose tea to make iced tea, I like Twining's Irish Breakfast the best, the same stuff I use to make a cup of hot tea. The mediterranean market in Grand Rapids has a really good (and very inexpensive) bulk tea that I like too.

I have one of those Mr. Coffee iced tea makers and I use that to make a pitcher of tea for the fridge. I don't like tea sweetened or flavored, I don't want fruit or herbal stuff, I just like plain old tea, whether hot or iced.

Annie

ruthanna -

For all the different kinds of loose tea I have in my tea "stash", I just HATE cleaning up after steeping it!!! I have every type of tea ball, mesh balls, stainless steel balls, reusable cloth bag, ceramic tea balls, you name it.... When I do use loose tea for iced tea, I place it in a Finum Tea Filter and make my own teabags for loose tea so it goes from making tea to the compost container. NO loose tea mess...

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Finum tea filters, etc.

I use loose more than tea bags. I brought home a lot of loose tea from...Annie, where did we go in Michigan that had a petting zoo next to the road side stand? I just came across it when I purged the cabinets, it's very good.

The only loose tea available to me here - without driving an hour- is a tin of twinnings and it's $5 a tin. I do buy the Earl Grey for hot tea but have never thought about it for brewed since we drink gallons each week and I don't think I'd like it anyway.

I had one of those Mr. Coffee makers years ago....after it bit the dust I used my coffee maker for making iced tea. Works for me and I can't tell any real difference in the final product.

I have to tell y'all the first time I orderd tea in the deep south I almost choked it was so sweet....LOLOL! No offense to you sweet tea drinkers but it was a eye opener to me many year ago.

David

Two ways... quick and quicker. I can hang a couple three bags in my Mr Coffee drip coffee maker and just run plain water. Usually I drink a cup or so hot and the rest goes in a bottle in the fridge. For tea to take to work I nuke a mug with a couple tea bags. Let it steep for about 5 minutes and pour it in an old gatoraid bottle with the help of a funnel. A shot of honey that I shake into it for sweetness. Top it off with cold water and I have a quart of tea ready for transport. We have an ice machine at work so I can pour it in a cup of ice. A favorite is chai spice tea with honey... a very drinkable ice tea. The rest of the time I change up black teas and green tea... sometimes a bag of each. Assam is a favorite and I'll also go for ceylon... not really a big fan of orange pekoe. I get heartburn from soda pop so in the summer I drink iced tea by the gallons.

Found honey tends to make mold grow in my tea bottle so I have to bleach it clean every few days. Most of my honey is used to sweeten iced tea... drink my hot tea unsweetened.

: )
lyra

Lyra, What are you doing awake at this hour? I hope you are okay.

Nothing wrong with being up a 3 in the morning. Just being up and sober at that time seems so wrong.

I'm doing fairly well. Spring weather is being hard on my bones and I'm not sleeping much. I should be at work right now but no energy to drag myself there yet. Auto industry is self destructing and it has been a thing to behold. Eight people fired last Friday. Mass firings are always good.

Wondering what would happen if I mixed iced tea and cranberry juice.

: )
lyra

Cathy, wasn't it at that fruit market where we went to buy peaches, over by the Amish place? It had a deer named Annie or something, and it was during Canning Camp.

Working the night shift, Lyra?

David, I found out about sweetened tea the hard way too, I ordered some in Georgia once and got "sweet tea". I couldn't drink it and asked the waitress if I could just get plain iced tea with nothing in it. Nope, not available. I ended up with a glass of ice, a tea bag and hot water, but she wasn't very pleasant about it, LOL. I was informed in no uncertain terms that tea "had" to be sweet, always.

Annie

Lyra, you and I must have posted at the same time!

Cranberry juice and tea might be a very good thing, I'd try it!

Annie

Annie sorry that you had that happen in GA. Yes southern tea is served sweet BUT not all the time. I grew up on Sweet Tea but I haven't drank it that way in years and years. You are the customer and have the right to have your drink served the way that you want. The waitress should not have treated you that way because she was wrong.

Dixie, I think she was just having an all round bad day, she wasn't nice at all and made a couple of comments about people who weren't from the area. It was pretty clear we weren't, LOL.

It's the luck of the draw, I guess, you can get a crabby waitress anywhere you go....

Annie

I order unsweetened tea all the time - everytime- in restaurants. Almost all places have both but she still should have been nice.

There goes her tip! (Just kidding, I think!)

Annie, GA for me too. I just ordered tea and wasn't given the option but now know to ask for unsweetened. Sorry about the grumpy waitress. She must have been having a bad day....I'm sure your accent gave you away..LOL!

Lyra, I think of you all the time with all that's going on with auto industry. I sure hope you and your company make it through this mess. A Cape Cod always comes to mind when someone mentions cranberry juice. : )

David