I made iced tea that tastes EXACTLY my grandmother's iced tea.
I never really knew how she made it, but all I did this time was boil a teapot full of water with TEN teabags, pour the tea into a large one gallon pitcher which I then filled with water...but left the tea bags in to steep while it cooled.
Sucralose and lemon, and it tastes JUST like hers. I guess she left the tea to seep a REALLY long time.
@dolari I mean, that's my method except I just leave the jar in the sun all day while I'm at work.
@BalooUriza - I used to do that until I learned that the fuzzy stuff at the bottom of the jar wasn't good stuff. I started cold-brewing my tea and it was just as fine.
I cooked it this time cause I was on a time crunch, and I think that's what made the difference - REALLY hot water steeping a LONG time. Might go back to that.
@BalooUriza - Ah, I think our problem was that we used the suntea jar to actually PREPARE the tea, including sugar and everything.
That said, this is all academic. I live in Seattle now...there isn't enough sun to feel warm, much less to make sun tea. :D
@dolari Eeeh, never say never, I've made sun tea leaving a jar on my kitchen table with a west facing downtown apartment window (so, insanely hot in the summer and I could heat the apartment to 40° on about 8¢ a month in gas with just the pilot light; the only time I turned it all the way on was after a gas outage on a snowy day, and it heated up the apartment so fast the building was popping and creaking)
@dolari But also, yes, never try brewing suntea with sugar. Not unless you plan on keeping it consistently warm long enough to make pruno.
@dolari My trick is never using the same jar for anything other than unsweet suntea and sanitizing it between uses. And maybe unusually good luck on something for once.