22nd November, 2006: Brewing Delicious Hot Tea
Tea American Style
In the western world, America is second only to Great Britain in tea consumption. We drink nearly 50 billion cups every year – 40 billion of those are iced tea. Iced Tea is, in fact, an American phenomenon. It was an instant hit when hot tea was served over ice at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. How cool is that?
For the Best Hot Tea:
Bring fresh cold tap water to a full, rolling boil.
Use one teaspoonful of tea or one tea bag per 5-ounce. cup of water.
Poor the boiling water over the tea.
Brew 3-5 minutes.
If you prefer your tea less strong, add more water after the brewing period.
For the Best Iced Tea:
Follow the directions for making hot tea, but use 50% more tea to allow for melting ice. For example, use 4 tea bags to make 4 cups of hot tea, but 6 tea bags to make 4 glasses of iced tea.
For a two-quart pitcher, add 15 tea bags or 1/5 cup loose tea to 1 quart of freshly drawn cold water brought to a full boil.
Stir and let stand 5 minutes.
Stir again and remove the tea bags or strain into a pitcher containing 1 quart of freshly drawn cold water. .
Tea goes well with any meal or snack. Sip tea year round with breakfast, lunch or dinner. In the afternoon, pause for a tall refreshing glass and a light snack, or treat yourself to a hot mug of tea on a blustery winter night.
Posted by Elizabeth at 2:42 pm |
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Hello Elizabeth, Happy tea drinking. I recently posted a comment to a pleasent sounding young man by the name of Kyle about the quality of the water he uses to make tea. Upon reading your instructions on making tea, I see you reccomend using freash tap water. When I saw that, I thought it warranted forwarding my comment to you also. I live in Ohio, in a part of the state that borders a reclaimed swamp. Our water is full of iron, sulphur and who knows what else. I work in a city not far from us that has water that passes EPA criteria but you’d swear you were drinking wash water because of the chlorine smell…it’s overwhelming! The way I combat that is to use distilled water to make my tea. The flavors come through great, there’s no scum on the top of my drink and I enjoy it to the bottom of the cup. Sometimes, I’ve heard people complain about the quality of the tea they drink and I ask them if they have ever considered the quality of the water they use. Most people never consider that. I’ve never found a faucet filter to take out that chemical taste and there’s just no help for the water we have in our town. Try distilled water if you ever come across bad taste…you’ll be surprised. Blessings, grandmamaddie @ yahoo.com
Comment by Madelene Gibson — April 8, 2007 @ 5:36 pm