The ingredients are simple, but the proportions are critical. For 2 quarts of water, we'll need 3/4 cup (150 g) sugar, 2 ounces (60 mL) lemon juice, and two bags of black tea. The lemon juice can be fresh, but I used bottled juice since I always have a bottle handy in my kitchen.
Bring two quarts of water to a rolling boil.
Drop the two tea bags into the water and remove from heat. Cover with a lid and allow steeping for at least 1 hour. Although, in general, black teas should not be steeped for this long because of the excessive release of bitter tannins, this did not seem to be an issue when brewing this much tea with only two bags. Using more bags with a shorter steep time generated a different flavor profile that did not blend as nicely with the lemon juice.
Once the tea has been sufficiently steeped, remove the tea bags and add the sugar and lemon juice. Stir until the sugar completely dissolves.
Pour tea into a pitcher and add ice cubes until the volume has returned to two quarts.
Refrigerate until completely chilled (at least four hours) before serving.Lemon Iced Tea (makes two quarts or 1.9 liters)
| 1/2 gallon (1.9 L) water | bring to rolling boil | cover & remove from heat | steep one hour | mix | add ice until liquid returns to 1/2 gallon | refrigerate until fully chilled |
| 2 bags of black tea | ||||||
| 3/4 cup (150 g) sugar | ||||||
| 2 oz. (60 mL) lemon juice | ||||||
| ice | ||||||
To a southerner, the whole thing looks a bit weak, but I guess if you were trying to recreate nestea in a can you probably accomplished it.
A echo the previous question about tea-bag size. The look like regular size. Like the previous poster indicated, we Southerners like our iced tea strong: "as dark as molasses and just as sweet." So, I use four Lipton Family-Size teabags to make a gallon of iced tea. I don't care for it being too sweet, so I use about 1 1/3 cups of sugar for a gallon. And leave out the lemon altogether. Otherwise, your method is familiar, especially the long steeping times which I'm sure would shock a tea purist. That being said, I do frequently enjoy a traditionally prepared cup of hot tea. Lapsang Souchong is the best!
I'm not sure - I didn't experiment with sugar first, so I don't know if it will affect the brewing/taste. Dissolving the sugar was never a problem because after even two hours, the water is still quite warm. The sugar dissolves pretty rapidly as you stir it in.
I've never thought about adding lemon juice to the tea itself because I always keep fresh lemons around to slice into wedges and drop in each glass.
As for sweetness, it depends on whether my brother-in-law (sweet-tea drinker) and/or my sister (lemon only) will be around. I like both tastes, but you can't add sugar to a cold liquid, so I make a simple syrup with a whole lemon, washed and sliced, a cup or less of sugar, and maybe 2/3 as much water as sugar, plus mint leaves if I have any: Throw the water and sugar on the stove, bring to a boil, add lemon and mint and kill the heat, and let it cool. It doesn't keep forever, and it doesn't freeze solid, so alter the amounts appropriately for what you can use.
You can add the lemon or lime to the water when you add the tea bags if you're not going to sweeten the tea. I try not to add sugar to stuff that I drink. ;)
Thanks for catching that! I apparently had it correct in the article, but when it came time to making the summary, I made the wrong conversion.
Fixed!
acidic water will make tea go bitter
a small amount of baking soda 1/8 - 1/4 teaspoon
per quart should be plenty should make for much darker tea
I have been doing 6 cups of water 2 tetley round tea bags and 3 min steep time with a bit of backing soda in the water before the tea bags
then you add a bit of lemon again to bring the ph back down a bit or just to flavour of choice
but then again I'm from the far north EH so we may like it a bit differnt here
Well this is what I put in:
2 quarts of water
2 ounces of lemon juice
2 bags of lipton natural Tea (not family tea bag)
1 cup of sugar
How can I improve this?I just want the taste near the Snapple Lemon Tea.....
the lemon flavor is great for picnics & large groups because it is easy to transport & serve!
Well this is what I put in:
2 quarts of water
2 ounces of lemon juice
2 bags of lipton natural Tea (not family tea bag)
1 cup of sugar
How can I improve this?I just want the taste near the Snapple Lemon Tea.....
A cup of white, granulated sugar weighs about 175 grams or 6 ounces. That's about 665 Calories of pure non-nutritive food calories. YIKES!!! Talk about candy!
The reason you are missing the tea taste is you are making two quarts of tea with the amount of tea bags one would use to brew two or three CUPS of hot tea. You need much more tea. You should use at least 5 tea bags, maybe 8 for two quarts of iced tea, especially once the ice starts to melt if you want to maintain the taste of the tea.
but what about that strange and southern iced tea, otherwise known as sweet tea? water flavor is important; if you're lucky enough to have delicious well water, use it. use less water and more tea and boil on stove in pyrex or glass. i know, i'm a little superstitious about metal flavoring things (cast iron has that effect on some). you're going for a dark tea concentrate, which you'll sweeten and dilute to taste later. view the guidelines above for how much sweetener (.75-2 cups/pitcher) and amount of tea.
Subject: Lemon Tea
I was raised on traditional southern iced tea. However, in high school many years ago, a friend invited me to her home for lunch. This family was originally from Mexico. The ice tea served that day was a beautiful mixture of tea and lemon/lemonade... a sweet drink. I thought it was wonderful. I have tried to duplicate this tea, on a number of occasions, but never have found the correct proportions of tea to lemon. Does anyone know the secret?
Hi, Why not contact the friend? Great recipes people! Thank you for posting them, ~~Mafi
My husband and I tasted our first brew of homemade, Lemon Iced Tea, today. It was very nice, and I, myself, do not like tea of any sort. I made it as a surprise for my husband. He loved it, and so did I. It has a very even blend of just the right amount of everything. Not too much tea tasting, not too sugary, not too lemony, not too watery. It is JUST RIGHT!
I have already made another batch for tomorrow. We deffinetly enjoyed it, and certainly will time and time again from here on in.
Funny, I went shopping with our daughter tonight. I happen to pass a shelf of bottled Lipton Lemon Iced Tea. All that pass through my mind was..."ha ha, mine taste better than yourrrrrs"!!!...Ha! I could not resist having a cocky moment. :-)
Thank you so very much for sharing the wonderful recipe! I have to say, "This Was A Good Thing". Kindest Regards, ~~Mafi
I did everything the same except add the lemon juice.
The tea is quite lemony already. Wish me luck! ~~Mafi
ps: doesn't anyone post here anymore???
In 3 quarts of boiling water steep 3 family sized tea bags for 6-8 minutes.
Pour 1 1/2 cups sugar into gallon jug then pour tea on top of sugar and stir or shake to dissolve. Add 1 1/2 gallon of orange/pineapple juice. Add enough cold water to cap off gallon. Chill.
We had a variation of this at a restaurant in Nashville. The restaurant called it 'Fling Tea' and I've been making my own variation of it since.
tea bags brew in less than a minute, loose tea no more than three minutes, this REALLY makes a HUGE difference in how the tea tastes, and try using the lemon zest instead of the juice, if what you are going for is the flavor of Snapple, try Typhoo tea, use a vegetable peeler on the lemon, probably one good slice of peel should do it, you dont want any white (pith) remove tea leaves or bags first, then drop in the lemon zest, its the oil from the outside of the peel that has the lemon flavor you are looking for, three quarters cup sugar for two quarts tea should make it sweet as Snapple, and refrigerate for a couple hours, ice will only make it taste like melted ice, yuck
How I make iced tea depends on the quantity I need. For Mock Sun Tea I use a gallon sized glass jar, 18-20 regular sized lipton or Red Rose tea bags. Add 2 quarts boling or almost boiling purified water, let steep for 5 minutes, then fill the jar to an inch from the top with cool water and let it sit for at least 1 hour. Remove tea bags, do not squeeze, add 1 cup of sugar stir to dissolve. At that point I transfer it to my gallon size tupperware pitcher and refrigerate it. My family members add lemon slices or juice and/or mint when they serve up their ice filled glasses.
I prefer to add mint to the jar after adding the cool water, but not everyone loves mint as much as me. I also LOVE to serve my tea over crushed ice with sliced Meyer lemons and plenty of mint from my garden.
I have used loose teas of all different varieties, most take 4 tablespoons to the gallon of water. Using loose tea gives more body to the tea, a almost creaminess. Bottled or purified water does matter. I never use tap water as it leaves a bad after taste from minerals.
Did you know that in Canada a quart has 5 cups, i.e. it is 40 ounces, and not the same in the US where it is 4 eight-ounce cups and = 32 oz.
The confusion only occurs if you do not include the actual number of ounces you intend or a metric quivalent in your recipe.(You have done that for the lemon juice ingredient.)
Remember,the same problem occurs with pints. Two pints equal one quart in both countries but in Canada a pint or half-quart equals 20 ounces.
Most of this doesn't matter since Canada went metric years and years ago but in recipes it really can still count - your Nestea re-creation would be quite different and paler and weaker with 25% more water to start.
Engineers, can you include