It’s the holiday weekend, and I don’t feel like posting any heavy stuff here now.  I’m busy with a bunch of home repair and improvement chores this weekend, and I just want to take a break from the world for now.  I’ve got the deck to reseal, my iron handrails by the front steps and porch to clean and paint, and a bunch of pots to put flowers in.  I don’t want to even look at the news for now.  So I’m going to share a little family trick with the rest of you kids.  How to make a jug of perfectly smooth and tasty sweet ice tea.  I’ve no idea why so many people get it wrong, but most of the stuff I taste, particularly around here in Maryland, is too rough on the pallet.  They like to make this "sun tea" for some reason, and it never tastes right to me. 

Making ice tea right is really very simple. They seem to have the knack for it in the South, but I didn’t know that until I visited down there recently.  Apparently sweet ice tea is a southern thing.  I’ve no idea how my mom, a Pennsylvania Yankee, got the method figured out.  I think it was just trial and error.  But by the time I was 12 she had it down pat and when I was a kid I just loved summertime because it was ice tea time.  Now I make it all the time.  I generally have a tall glass of it somewhere nearby all day long.

I start by boiling a kettle of water.  Filtered usually.  There are two tricks to it.  The first is to figure out how much sweetener you need for a given amount of boiling water beforehand.  It isn’t sweetened to taste afterward, but before.  I make about a kettle full, which works out to, I reckon, about a quart and a half, or about 48 ounces of water.  So I know from experience that it takes about a quarter cup of sweetener.  Your mileage may vary.  I used to use pure sugar, which I bought by the 25 pound bag at Costco.  But since I started watching my weight I’ve been using Splenda.  It works just fine for me as a sugar substitute.

I put the sweetener in the empty jug first.  When the water comes to a boil I pour it in over the sweetener, and it goes instantly into solution.  Then I put in the tea bags.  I just use plain old Lipton orange pekoe and pekoe tea bags.  Three standard size bags work for me for this amount of water.  Again, your mileage may vary.  I’ll place the top on the jug loosely and walk away from it.

See, the second trick, and probably the most important, is to let the tea cool down at its own speed.  Never, Never put it into the fridge before it’s at room temperature.  It’ll go bitter when you do that, even if it’s just a little bit warm to the touch.  Just let the jug cool off on its own to room temperature with the bags in it.   It may take hours.  That’s fine.  I usually do a jug before bed and just leave it overnight.  Once it’s at room temperature, then take the bags out, put the jug in the fridge and let it cool down.

That’s it.  Nothing really special about it.  But do it that way and you’ll get a nice, smooth sweet ice tea every time.  You can add lemon, and maybe a touch of lime after you pour it into the glass.

Long Island Ice Tea is another story, for another time.