Friday, August 15, 2008

Sun Tea

I don’t like to drink water. You got a problem with that? Even though we have hard water (supposedly the better for drinking but worse for suddsing [I think I made up that word so I guess I get to make up the spelling too?) I’d prefer juice or tea, even seltzer, at least that has bubbles! But drinking anything bought from the grocery store can get very expensive and isn’t particularly environmental (lots of water being shipping all over the country).

Our solution to this (at least in the summer) is to always keep a batch of sun tea on hand. Although we still buy juice and milk the sun tea ensures that these last longer.

Dad’s recipe:

For every one cup of water:
1 teabag (we use Red Rose, mostly for the little figurine that comes in each box, don’t even pretend you don’t do the same thing)

1 teaspoon dried spearmint (or a couple fresh spearmint leaves)

Add the teabags and spearmint to a clear glass jar and then add the water. Set out in the sun for a few hours. Then strain and add sugar to taste while the tea is still warm and refrigerate. And trust me: the spearmint is important. I suppose you could use other kinds of mint and fresh or dried are both good, although they yield different products. But it really isn’t nearly as good without the mint.

You may end up doing this every day. We do. And we’ve discovered it doesn’t actually have to be that sunny for it to work. As long as its fairly hot I think its fine.

Now my question is: does anyone have a good recipe for sun tea that uses green tea?

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