To make fast Iced Tea or Sweet Tea.
Follow this tip.
Put 13 Tea Bags (For Four Quarts, 6 or 7 for two quarts) into the basket of your Coffee Maker.
Brew as for a pot of Coffee.
When finished Brewing Pour into a Four Quart Pitcher (Or two quart if using less bags) and Add Water to finish filling the pitcher. Add Sugar to taste and Refrigerate till Cold or pour over Ice Cubes.
This is fast easy and keeps the house cooler in the summer, no need to boil WATER.
Enjoy!
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i brew tea all year round – i detest instant – and i have a coffeemaker [the cheap kind]that is only used for tea – i get loose tea and use filters, run about 3 pots of water through it to get all the flavor from it – occasionally add sugar right after it’s made, not usually – to make good sweet tea, you have to add sugar while it’s hot! also make small batches in a coffee press that’s only used for tea too. just be sure to let tea cool thoroughly before you put it in a tightly closed container, it’ll go bad quickly otherwise!
You can also add the sugar to the tea when in the basket of the coffeemaker.
I have always made tea like this. For one gallon I do 10 tea bags and 1 cup sugar. I add the sugar to the hot tea and then pour into a pitcher filled with ice and then fill up the rest of the way with water. Turns out great every time!
Forgot to say, the 3 pots of water is what i use when i’m making a 5 gal jug of tea for dinners, ball games, sales, to neighbors w/a death in the family, etc – i put 6 heaping tbsps of loose tea [my own 'personal blend' of 1# each of pekoe, Earl Grey and gunpowder green tea, mixed all together] in the coffeemaker in a filter – actually i often run 4 pots of water thru it, and use the last one straight for my own iced tea – or put it in the jug too – i cool the tea to room temp and use a chunk of ice frozen in an gallon ice cream bucket to keep it cold, keeps longer and doesn’t thaw as quickly. i finish filling the jug w/ water and it makes the right strength. You can make a lot of tea fairly quickly doing this if you’ve got ice to cool it – our church lunched a farm sale one August day and we sold 55 gallons of tea that day – that’s a LOT of tea!!
I do the “set it and forget it” method. I fill my 2 qt glass pitcher with hot tap water (probably 125* bc it’s too hot for my skin) and for family size bags of black tea, I use 2, and for littler bags of the green tea I use 6. Put them on the counter out of the way several hours to overnight. Sometimes, esp if the house is cooler, it might taker longer for the green tea esp. Too long out will sour your tea, so don’t leave it too long! I sweeten the black with 5 droppers full of non bitter stevia, and the green gets 4 and a shot of lemon. : )
And Laughter, that’s a LOT of tea! : )
I would strongly caution you against the use of HOT tap water. Please see below. I am not sure the links will work as I have copied my entire response to a previous suggestion for making tea using hot tap water dating back to 2009. But the links are active, and can be accessed by copying and pasting the URLs. I can’t stress enough how dangerous this is, especially for small children whose bodies are far more susceptible to the harmful contaminants that water can pick up from pipes (including those made of plastic; who knows what they look like on the inside surfaces after years of having water flow through them?) and hot water heaters that are not intended to provide potable water. One reader mentioned that she is preparing food and beverages with hot water from a 16 year old hot water heater! I am very concerned for her and her family.
Dolores Lombardi says:
December 3, 2009 at 2:45 pm
I am all for frugal living, but this is a VERY DANGEROUS idea! You are exposing yourself to many contaminants (including lead) which are probably not present in your cold tap water. These contaminants leach out of your hot water tank into your water while it is standing in the tank, because hot water tends to be more corrosive than cold water. Here are several links to articles which corroborate this. You will find others by googling search words “hot tap water drink.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/health/29real.html
http://everything2.com/title/Never+drink+or+cook+with+hot+tap+water
This is a perfect example of being penny-wise and pound-foolish in order to save a few cents worth of gas or electricity. Please be particularly careful about serving hot tap water to children, who, because they are smaller, are far more susceptible to the poisonous effects of the contaminants. There are small appliances which can be installed next to your sink which will keep a gallon or two of hot water ready for safe, potable use (e.g., Insinkerator Instant Hot Water Dispenser.)
Best way I have found to sweeten iced tea is simple syrup. 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup water boil until dissolved. Plus you can flavor the syrup, if so desired, by adding mint, lemon balm, ginger root or whatever.
Whatever method you use, if you add 1/4 tsp baking soda while the tea is hot, it won’t become cloudy when it cools.
Here in Arizona, we make sun tea. I have a gallon sized pickle jar with a lid. I just fill it with hot water, put two 1 gallon size tea bags in it and set it out in the sun for a couple of hours or more, depending on if I forget about it or not. It makes great tea. And I use simple syrup to sweeten it too.