Traditional Summer Refreshment: Homemade Iced Tea
It’s low in calories, high in flavor, and dirt cheap to make. When’s the last time you had homemade iced tea?
When I was growing up, my mom had this big glass jar with a screw-on top that she would fill with cold water, mint leaves, and 10 teabags and leave in the sun all day. Sometimes she’d toss in half a lemon or mix in some flavored teabags with the regular black tea, but it was always delicious.
If you don’t have the tools to make sun tea, don’t despair. Here’s how I make my tea now:
- Boil a kettle-full of water (about 2.5 liters or just under 3 quarts).
- Pour the hot water into a gallon pitcher (mine’s a Rubbermaid).
- Add 4 teabags(I use Lipton decaf black tea) with the paper tags pulled off.
- Let steep 30 minutes.
- Remove the teabags and fill the pitcher the rest of the way with cold water.
- Pour over ice, and enjoy!
If you like to sweeten your tea a little, I recommend adding 4 teaspoons of sugar to the pitcher while the tea is steeping. I usually add lemon and mint before topping off with the cold water.
When you’re all done, you’ll have a delicious, refreshing, all natural beverage to enjoy with no worry about what’s in it or how many calories it has, or whether you could have gotten it cheaper somewhere else — a nice change from store-bought tea beverages, no?
Tags: beverate, drink, iced-tea, low-calorie, recipe, Summer, woman, women, Womens-Health
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4 opinions for Traditional Summer Refreshment: Homemade Iced Tea
Katharine
Jul 25, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Oh, I love sun tea!
In my house, we always have two glass gallon jars ready at any time, one with black tea and the other with green tea. In the housewares section of some discount stores, you can find glass gallon jars with plastic lids and plastic spigots for easy dispensing, like the one shown here.
You can even experiment with using whole tea leaves; just use a strainer to remove them once the tea is ready.
Kristen King
Jul 26, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Two jars? That’s a great idea, Katharine. You know, I’ve never used whole teal leaves but I’ve always wanted to. I’ll have to add that to my tea repertoire.
kk
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Sep 27, 2007 at 3:51 pm
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mm
Jun 1, 2008 at 9:00 pm
No opinion… just trying to find a recipe fro making my own dried fruit tea…neeed a recipe for the right combin. ,like w/ dried orange, rosehips, berries etc. Thnx, MM.
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