Ice Tea: Home v. Out, Sun v. Brewed
The problem with many restaurants serving ice tea is that the beverage is treated as something that's mandatory without much love going towards the making it. We've all been guilty of it, and I more than most. I used to put ice tea drinkers right below "five refills of Diet Coke lady" on my most hated list of customers. The problem wasn't ice tea, the problem was me, and everyone else who does a crap job making it, like using giant bags of bad tea in the coffee maker. The only gaurantee for good ice tea is to DIY.
I asked James Oesterich of Tea Cup on the top of Queen Anne Hill (2207 Queen Anne Ave. N.) to weigh in on what makes good ice tea. "I'm from the south, and my mom would make a really strong tea concentrate to dilute with two parts water, which gave you a certain kind of flavor." That's diplomatic; concentrating tea into a smaller amount of water not only makes it strong, it also concentrates the tannins, the thing that make your mouth feel dried out and contributes to bitterness. To brew good ice tea...
James suggests using a 1/2 gallon of boiling water per one ounce of loose tea. Let it steep for three minutes, strain and refrigerate. Most teas can handle two steeps, maybe three by this method, yielding up to 1 1/2 gallons of the cold brew.
When I brought up the subject of sun tea, he stopped me. "Since you're most likely not heating the water above the danger zone, you're not killing any bacteria that may be on the leaf. We really discourage people from making sun tea." He's not being Chicken Little. Sure as a cup of Chinese breakfast tea, I threw out a batch earlier this summer that developed short, tissuey strands after a few days.
If you really, really want to make sun tea, make sure to start with a sterilized container. Don't let the tea brew in the sun for longer than four hours, and refrigerate it right away. Try to drink all the tea within 24 hours. Or you can roll your eyes, call it paranoia and throw caution to the wind. I don't know about you, but I already put myself at the outer limits of risk for foodborne bacteria illness; I'll boil my water thank you.
2 comment(s)
Anonymous says:
you didn't mention cold brew iced tea which forgoes the dangers of the sun and works twice as well. Put tea bags in cold water, let sit in fridge overnight, in the morning you have perfect iced tea--no bitterness.
Posted On: Sunday, Jul. 12 2009 @ 9:23AM
hungrygrrl says:
you didn't mention cold brew iced tea which forgoes the dangers of the sun and works twice as well. Put tea bags in cold water, let sit in fridge overnight, in the morning you have perfect iced tea--no bitterness.
Posted On: Sunday, Jul. 12 2009 @ 9:24AM