Sun
Tea
by Ron
& Kathy Campbell - Merkaba
As summer approaches, or is upon us, we are often asked how to
prepare "Sun Tea". If you are not familiar with this delight, it
is a simple brewing process that utilizes the natural and gentle
heat of the sun to brew your tea. It is an easy and great way to
make some tea without heating up your kitchen.
Here's how
using a 2 quart glass container:
Place your loose leaf tea, bags or herbal tea into the
container.
Fill the container with cold water and gently stir.
Loosely place a lid on the container.
Place in a sunny location.
Let sit for a few hours, typically about 3-5 depending upon the
tea used, the desired strength, the amount of sun and air
temperature. You may have to move your jug if the sun shifts.
When the tea has reached its desired strength, remove from sun
and put it in the refrigerator. You may or may not want to
remove the tea itself at this point.
The tea will probably taste mellower compared to what you are
used to from using boiling water. The slow seeping has a way of
bringing out a slightly different flavor from the tea. Also,
because you didn't use boiling water, you should refrigerate the
tea and drink it up pretty quickly, within a day or two. It will
not keep as well as iced tea made from boiling water.
Instead of making "sun tea," another alternative is to brew tea
overnight in the refrigerator as you would in the sun. Figure
about 6 to 8 hours for brewing time depending upon the tea that
is used.
Experiment by adding herbs if you like. Honeybush, Lemon Myrtle
and mint go nicely. But, any personal taste preference will
normally work very well.
