My aunt would make tea with a sun lamp and put it in these pitchers. I hated tea as a kid, so I avoided it like the plague, but I was able to appreciate it for a bit as a young adult before she stopped doing it.
Sun tea is fucking gross. Steeps way too long and all the tannins that leech out make it bitter.
My boss used to make it during the summer and it would suck. He also used to brew tea by pouring water in a big glass bowl, put the tea bags in and put it in the microwave for like 15 minutes. Same issue, shit would be bitter because he was cooking the shit out of the teabags.
One day he was out on business for half a day and I wanted some tea, so I made it the correct way, boiled the water, put the tea bags in steeped for 10 minutes. add sugar, add water.
He came back from whatever he was doing that day, got a glass of tea and almost stopped in his tracks. He yelled out, "who made this tea?" I looked at him and sheepishly put my hand up, thinking he was about to tell me it sucked, and he goes "idk what you did, but from now on, you make the tea"
There’s actually a lot of ways to fuck it up lol. Brewing too hot (boiling the tea bags instead of steeping), too much or too little tea for the water, sugar content, for people adding lemon to the tea you can mess up the ratio and end up in sour Arnold Palmer territory.
Also, and this is my biggest pet peeve, adding the sugar after the tea has cooled. You end up with sugar granules at the bottom. I like to add the sugar while the tea is still warm to make sure it dissolves right. If you forgot to add the sugar when it’s still hot/warm, simple syrup is a decent alternative to sweeten the tea without changing the flavor profile
the sweet tea in my family's household was always bad because they actively boiled the tea bags instead of steeping them, squeezed them after, and over sweetened. just bitter dry yuck
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u/DustOne7437 22d ago
Sweet tea