where can you get the kind of iced tea you get in a restaurant?

or if the answer is "no," i guess my question is, what kind of tea should i be buying?

Lipton tea bags, big tea jar o' water, leave in sun

that's what my parents drank when I was a kid.

If you live near a Chik-Fil-A, they sell gallons of their tea (which is the same stuff)

i've been doing the half 'n half thing, half iced tea half lemonade. which was a big thing on long island, like in cars, in the sun. ugh it's so good.

PS making hot tea and putting ice in it isn't so tricky

i mean, you turn the stove on

...

add tea bags, and refrigerate.

yeah i didn't really mean an "easier" way so much as a better way

like is that how restaurants do it? or do they buy it wholesale from someone and if so where can i get it?

In my opinion, it tastes better if you steep it in hot water, but leaving it in the sun is just as effective.

Iced tea with a little juice in it is good, too.

i think the trick is probably just to add a shit ton of sugar.

simple syrup > sugar when it comes to iced tea.

To make a prairie It takes clover and one tea One clover, and a tea, and reverie. The reverie alone will do, If teas are few

simple syrup > sugar when it comes to iced tea.

-- adam, Saturday, July 5, 2008 1:58 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

well ya i meant in general, not specifically granular sugar

like is that how restaurants do it? or do they buy it wholesale from someone and if so where can i get it?

Yes, this is how most restuarants do it. I've been making my own lately as follows:

Five Liption tea bags (tied together for easier removal later) and four cups boiling water. Steep for one hour. Add two cups cold water and then chill. I don't add ice until later as adding ice when hot will just dilute the tea. If using granulated sugar, you can add the sugar to the concentrate before chilling so that it's easier to dissolve.

if you're looking to buy ready-made then try to find tea labeled "sweet tea" or "southern style tea," which is what the chick-fil-a tea is. i think some or most brands (like arizona)use HFCS or whatnot instead of a sucrose-based simple syrup, which might change the taste so check labels.

if you're making it at home you can also add the sugar while you're heating the water, while brewing, or just after like enbb does, but the key thing about sweet tea is that it's supersaturated, so you need to do this while still hot so all the sugar will dissolve and stay in solution. if you just brew tea unsweetened and try to add sugar later when cool then it'll mostly just precipitate out. also, the internets says orange pekoe teas are generally used, mostly lipton or luzianne. i'm not actually from the south so i don't know if this is scripture or not.

oversweetened iced tea is the worst

I'm in US and noticed the price of tea went up....I used to get it in bulk from Chinese market. Is it my imagination, or is the quality not as good as it used to be?

Tea is wonderful.

i know, it's such a gift

iced tea + lemonade + dry white wine = not bad

I think I post my tea recipe every few months. Sorry, if this is your eleventieth time through.

Drop into a large bowl 10 teabags for every 4 cups of room-temperature water. Don't stir or press the tea bags. Remove after 45 minutes without squeezing out the bags (the extra tannin expressed is what makes tea bitter).

On the stove, heat 1 cup water with 1 cup sugar added; stir on low heat until sugar is just melted. Turn off and let cool to room temp. Put in an old glass bottle and refrigerate. (I use an old vinegar bottle that I washed out.)

Add simple syrup to tea as desired -- I do a whole pitcher at a time but you could do by the glass, especially if you're having company.

Cooks' Illustrated decided that Lipton tea made the best iced but I don't like that they wrap each tea bag individually inside the box, so I usually buy Red Rose.

If you want to get fancy, you can steep bruised herbs or fruit seasonings in the syrup, put them in when you start the heating, and leave them in the pot until the syrup cools. Strain or pluck out herbs.

10 bags for every four cups water?! Is that insanely strong? The recipe I have says 5 bags to every four cups and it turns out fairly strong as is. I don't add a lot of sugar at all though so maybe that's the difference?

oversweetened iced tea is the worst

that's cool, sweet iced tea is made differently than regular iced tea and i didn't know if that's what j.d. meant by "restaurant" tea. i also think sweet tea is brewed a little stronger to counterbalance the sweetness, maybe? just tryin to delineate the parameters here.

i dunno cuz isn't restaurant tea unsweetened? i guess they usually have both

some places sweeten it just a bit which is nice

ENBB i think the difference is that Lauren makes the tea with room temperature water. 10 tea bags wouldn't make RT water particularly strong.

as far as adding maple syrup, it sounds great but would make a nice cheap drink into a rather spendy one.

My tea recipe is somewhat similar others have posted here, but I also add in about 4-5cm of thinly sliced ginger root to the boiling water.

half iced tea half lemonade

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http://www.artletics.com/siteadmin/images/products/pro_170_2.jpg

arnold palmers ftw

riight

tied together for easier removal later

Ooh, very good improvement to my method. Thanks, Mrs. Spirelli.

if you like stronger brew when it comes to iced tea or iced coffee, fill your ice cube trays with tea or coffee and freeze. then, when you plop them in your glass, your cool cool beverage doesn't get watery, it just gets better!

oops, that was me, scott.

Sweet Iced Tea

Sweet tea is usually both very strong and very sweet because it's meant to be served over a glass full of ice.

ENBB, yeah, with the room temp water it doesn't draw out the tannins that hot water does! As far as I can tell, sun tea falls somewhere between the room temp water that I use, and boiling water for regular tea.

The way I make it is a Cooks' Illustrated recipe, my mother makes sweet tea with hot water but back before I had AC in my Bklyn apt I just could not bear to heat water on the stove on hot days, so the room temp method was SO useful.

yes