Sun Tea
by Ron & Kathy Campbell

 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.

Ron and Kathy Campbell own and operate Merkaba, a retail and online store that features a wide variety of teas and tea items. Their teas come from all over the world and include organic herbal teas, healing teas, Yerba Mate, green teas, black teas, oolong, white teas, pu-erh, flavored tisanes, chai teas, flavored and blended teas. You'll find all kinds of tea products including filters, thermometers, tea bag squeezers, tea cozies, gourds, tea pots and tea sets, mugs and cups, mesh tea infusers, bombilla and even coffee and tea scoops. For more information about Merkaba, their retail shop in Idyllwild, CA, or their online store visit – Click Here.