Iced Tea

Having spent a good deal of time in the South, I’ve developed a taste for iced tea. While I don’t actually put ice in my tea, having a perfectly good refrigerator, and an overstuffed freezer, I adjusted the recipe to account for the lack of frozen water.

Bring to a boil water in a small pot, remove from the heat, add the tea bags, cover, steep for 5-10 minutes, depending on the brand of tea and how strong you like it, pour it all into a 2 quart pitcher, add enough water to fill the pitcher, remove the tea bags, add sweetener, refrigerate, and you’re done. For the sweetener, you can use sugar, 1/4 to 1/2 a cup depending on your sweet tooth, but I use a teaspoon of Superose, a saccharin based sweetener.

Teas that I like:

Lipton Family Size
2 tea bags
I like Lipton tea, but I detest the individually wrapped tea bags. The Family Size tea bags are larger, so there aren’t a bunch of packets to open.

Luzianne
8 tea bags
Luzianne, another fine tea, is a little hard to find in Madison, WI, but luckily Woodman’s carries it -- no individual wrappings on the bags, but you do have to deal with all the strings.

Tetley British Blend
7 tea bags
This is the tea that I would drink on the road when I was still driving a cab. Two bottles of Tetley would keep me going through the long shift. On the road, I would drink it unsweetened -- very refreshing. The tea comes in a round bag without string and superfluous packaging.

PG Tips
5 tea bags
I love this tea. We just found it at Woodman’s, so this is our first box. It makes a wonderful iced tea. The bags are shaped like a pyramid, and have no strings. This tea is going to stay stocked in my cupboard.

...more tea review to come.