How do you make sun brewed tea

I don't complain when she leaves in the middle of watching me play video games so she can go watch Project Runway in the other room. I'll put on clean socks and change my underwear for special occasions like tenth anniversaries and bicentennial birthdays.

I even sometimes let her bite the tip off my pizza slice so long as she gives me her crust in return. Given my affinity for blatantly schmaltzy moves like these, you'd think that I'd be a sucker for sun tea, and yes, there's an undeniable romantic appeal to the concept—iced tea brewed using the power of the sun in pretty old-fashioned glass containers.

The perfect cooling sipper for hot summer days and all that. But romance is one thing and results are another. My questions: does sun tea work? Does it really produce a better tasting or easier tea than the many alternatives? What about this whole business about never using plastic? Bags or loose leaves? Can I sweeten before I add the tea, or must I follow the advice of every Southern cookbook, blog, and grandmother out there, using only Luzianne tea bags and adding sugar only after it's brewed?

And wait a minute, is the stuff even safe to drink? On the first sunny day I could manage, I whipped out my digital thermometer , a half dozen pitchers and containers of various materials, more tea than you could shake a swizzle stick at, and got to brewing.

Here's what I found. The idea with sun tea is simple: place tea bags or loose tea in a glass container filled with water and set it in direct sunlight. A few hours later, you've got brewed tea, ready to be served over a cup of ice. The story is that the heat of the sun makes tea extraction faster, giving you ready-to-drink tea within a couple hours without the need to heat up water indoors. Some folks also say that the flavor is different because of the lower temperature extraction.

Before going in depth with my testing, I first wanted to determine the optimal type of tea to use, as well as the ratio of tea to water.

I brewed sun tea with both loose leaf and tea bags for consistency's sake, everything was made with Lipton black tea , as well as the "cold brew" bags designed for quicker extraction at cool temperatures. With these three options, what it basically all comes down to is the size of the pieces of tea leaf. Loose tea has large-ish strips of cut tea leaf, while regular tea bags contain a much finer ground mixture. Scale 1x 2x 3x. Instructions Place the tea bags, orange slices and mint in bottom of a large pitcher.

Slowly fill with water. Cover pitcher with plastic wrap or lid and place outside for at least 4 hours on a sunny or warm day. Bring inside and strain tea. Serve with ice. Butternut Squash Fettuccine Alfredo. Acorn Squash Farm Share Chili. Sun You already have this, but look for a place in your yard or on your fire escape that will get full sun for hours at a stretch. The intensity of the sun will directly affect the intensity of the brew. We tried two different kinds of black tea in our sun labs—the first, standard Lipton orange pekoe and cut black in individual bags, and second, hand-filled sachets of Organic Golden Monkey black tea.

For each we administered a ratio of ounces of water to grams of tea. Fully submerging the tea within the filtered water, we lidded our jugs you should cover the opening with saran wrap if your vessel does not come self-equipped with a lid , set those bad boys in a sunbeam, and waited. And waited.

Though no shorter than 3 hours or longer than 5 hours are recommended, you'll know your sun tea is ready for you by color and taste. The Lipton—made of smaller shards of leaves which infuse more quickly—attained a deep hue earlier than the loose tips of the Golden Monkey, but both teas achieved fully developed infusions, mild yet full of flavor.

The Lipton pitcher, for instance, brewed up with a light lemon effervescent quality—but none of the tinniness that sometimes seems to come with regular hot-brewed bagged blacks. Of the two, the fancier-pants tea was hands down more elegant : when brewed hot, it's caramel-like and creamy, but when steeped slowly by the heat of the sun, it's like a delicate sweet orange liquor.

We prefer to pour it over a nice block of ice— letting the balance of dilution happen gradually , like any good summer cocktail. Now of course, if sweet's your thing—or mint, lime basil, wedges of lemon, eye of newt, or any other seasonal ingredient—a standard bagged black tea might be just the perfect base for your sunkissed infusion.

Strain and refrigerate immediately. Consume same day Alternatively, there is the cold brew option which is where you take your tea to the refrigerator to brew instead of letting it brew outside under a hot sun. How to make cold brew tea This cold brew tea method is courtesy of tea sommelier and self-proclaimed tea master, Jee. TEA: 1. Sign up to our newsletter. Submit Submitting Your email is not an email. Your email is required.

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