Today for my company’s Thanksgiving dinner, one of the things I brought was Unsweetened Tea. I’m in the Southeast portion of the states, and this form of iced tea seems to be in a huge shortage. I know there are some closet fans out there, and I met 3 today, as I was complimented on my brew. One gentleman went so far as to ask how I made it, as he had tried and tried and did not feel as if he could brew a decent pitcher. In his eyes I saw the same frustration that I once had.  So it has inspired me to write this set of instructions on how I brew what I consider the perfect batch of my favorite drink in the whole world – Unsweetened Iced Tea, a drink that I’m sure the Gods drank as they pondered how to organize the universe.

It’s taken many gallons of horrible tea to perfect the recipe. I can’t tell you the frustration I’ve been through to get that fresh, clear, flowery smelling, easy sipping stimulant brewed to perfection.

The idea came once when I was brewing beer… I thought, “I can brew beer that wins awards, but not a good pitcher of iced tea? What’s wrong here?”

Below, please find the instructions to make a pitcher to help you organize your own universe.

Bad Tea

Things that happen that constitutes failure of a good pitcher of tea, and what I’ve found to be common culprits:

Bitter

Brew water too hot

Bad or Old Tea Leaves

Seems to happen more with tea bags

Cloudy

Over oxygenation

Hard Water

A ‘Thick’ Consistency (which is most always accompanied by cloudiness)

Tea is too old (> 36 hours in the pitcher)

Bacteria growth

This seems to happen a lot quicker with sweet tea, which I dislike anyway.

Ingredients

So, good tea starts with good ingredients. These are really simple and hard to mess up:

Water

I use filtered water. Nothing fancy here; Brita filtered tap water works fine with the water profile I have at my house. And this removes some of the ions and of course, chlorine/chloramine.

I would imagine if bad came to worse and you live in a wetland area, or an area with a lot of minerals in the water (my previous residence included both), I feel you could go for store-bought “Drinking Water” but not distilled. It just doesn’t taste natural, due to having a very low mineral content. Also, the jury is still out on Spring water, as it is either a) Reverse Osmosis filtered water with added minerals, or b) bottled from the source. I haven’t a clue how it works with tea as I’ve never tried it.

Tea

I use Lipton Loose tea. You can’t find it everywhere, and in the places that do carry it, it seems to hide amongst the many varieties of tea bags, which are over priced, and under-performing as far as I’m concerned. The tea in bags is ground very fine, thus leaving you more likely to extract a high amount of tannins and increases surface area, thus letting the tea grow older, quicker.

A good source for this in bulk is Indian Food Stores. However, make sure you are getting leaves, as they sell a type of Lipton that, while awesome for hot tea, produces a strange, reddish iced tea. While the tea is not a bad brew, it is not what one expects for traditional iced tea. It is labeled as “Lipton Yellow Label” and instead of the bare leaves, one finds little balls, for lack of better words, and on the whole, it looks much like instant coffee.

 

Equipment

• Stainless pot for brewing
• Strainer, like a kitchen strainer. The straining area is mesh. These seem common in department stores, and here is what they look like: 
  
  Also, I’m not big on using ‘tea balls’ as they do not provide enough room for the tea leaves to float in the water. Might as well use tea bags at that point.
• Heat Source – stove, flame, or tea kettle.
• Receiving vessel – or pitcher, to store the brewed tea.
• Some way to measure the tea in at the most tablespoon increments (one can sufficiently eyeball the 1/2 T if one needs to). Remember, 1T = 3t.

Using the Above Two Items to Produce Quality Tea

1. Prepare the vessel. I use an old pickle jar, which I had long ago purchased tea in from a local deli. Preparation includes using a brush to clean the inside out with dish detergent and I go the extra step in using 3 drops of iodine solution to kill any lurking germs. This is probably overkill, but I sleep well at night knowing I didn’t introduce bacteria into this batch from the last batch. A half-full pitcher of water, 3 drops of iodine solution, mixed, splashed on the sides left for 4-5 minutes, drained, and not rinsed seems to work great. Rinsing may introduce bacteria from the water spigot.
   Once again, this is overkill, and I’m sure you’ll find other ways that bacteria can be introduced to the brew, but at least the pitcher doesn’t start out as an inoculated petri dish.
   
   
2. Heat 1.5 Liters or around 3 pints of water to ~ 200 degrees Fahrenheit. I use an electronic tea pot to bring the water to the point right before boiling. If you are using a stove, it would be when the bubbles just start to form on the bottom of the pot.
   
   
3. Measure out 2.5 tablespoons of loose tea to a separate pot, the pot you plan to use to brew your tea. I use a stainless steel sauce pan.
   
   
4. Pour the water onto the tea. You’ll notice the water decreases its temperature to 190 d.f., when the temperature settles. This is important. With temperatures too high, it leads to a more bitter tea, and the aroma seems not as flowery and sweet. A lower temperature will produce tea that has a nice delicate flower-like aroma and a sweet, non-bitter taste.
    
   
5. Do not stir the pot. I follow the Zen method of brewing tea from leaves – let the water hit the leaves where it will and do not force it. This stems more from laziness on my part than any personal statement on life. I’d say the balance here is 80/20.
   
6. (Not essential) Prepare a cup with ice cubes to have a fresh glass when you are finished.
7. Wait 4 minutes and let the tea brew, uncovered, untouched.
8. Strain. I balance the strainer over the pitcher and pour, pour, pour. And be careful, too.
   
   
9. I complete this with adding about 750 milliliters (3 cups) of source water to taste. If you like strong tea, or are consuming it right away, you may want less water, as your melted ice cubes will do this step for you. For extra certainty that you aren’t introducing a bacteria culture, you can boil this water. Honestly, as anal as I was about sterilization at the first, I find that not taking the step of boiling this water first a bit out of character for me. But I still rest well at night.
10. Seal it up; do not let it contact any more outside air than absolutely necessary, or it seems to cloud the pot up in a matter of ~ 8 hours. This is why I use the pickle jar with the lid. Do not force it to cool, do not refrigerate it. Do not shake it, and whatever you do, do not add sweeteners.
11. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.