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Hippo Manchester
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Summer coolers, just add sunlight Making sun tea is art mixed with chemistry mixed with many teabags By John “jaQ” Andrews Summer may be winding down, but it’s these endtimes (as I like to call them) when you need to keep cool the most. A tall glass of iced tea always hits the spot, especially if it’s homebrewed. Making sun tea is ridiculously easy, and takes only a touch of patience. First, you need a glass or clear plastic jar. Sun tea jars are most often sold in the one-gallon variety, so I’ll assume that’s how much tea we’re making here, but the recipe can be halved or quartered or multiplied and divided any which way. Fill the jar about 4/5 of the way with water — filtered, if possible. Throw in 12 teabags of your choice, and make sure they’re all actually submerged. Put the jar in a sunny spot outside, or inside if you’re paranoid about thieves or ants. Then the waiting game starts. The sun’s rays will pierce the jar and get those teabags to release their flavor into the water, brewing over the next few hours. How long you leave your jar in the sun is a matter of taste or convenience. One or two hours is usually enough, but it’s fine to leave it out all day while you’re at work. Your tea will then be a little stronger. Once the water is a rich brown, remove the teabags and add two cups of sugar and one cup of lemon juice. Stir until everything’s dissolved, and serve over ice. Chill in the refrigerator if possible. For some extra flavor, replace some of the teabags with an equal amount of mint leaves. You’ll get a fresh minty flavor no toothpaste can compete with. You can also substitute other citrus juices for the lemon juice, like orange or lime. For a Southern variation, mix the sugar into your water before you set it out to brew. This will infuse the sugar more fully into the beverage, and give you something akin to Southern sweet tea. Finally, you might want to try twilight tea. For some reason, late afternoon sunlight gives tea a more subtle, deeper flavor that seems to refresh more effectively. Advanced tea making When you’re ready to move on from teabags, you can experiment with loose tea in cheesecloth. Substitute about 1 teaspoon of loose tea for one teabag. No, that’s not why it’s called a teaspoon. It’s called that because you stir your tea with a teaspoon. Not iced tea, hot tea. Brewed one cup at a time. In a teacup. One guess why it’s called a teacup. In any case, most supermarkets sell loose tea alongside their standard teabags. Or, you can try these smaller markets:
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