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Permalink Reply by John P on July 12, 2009 at 10:22pm

Slightly heaping Tablespoon of tea leaves - 8 oz hot water. steep 4-5 minutes. Pour through tea strainer into cup full of ice. As the hot tea is twice as concentrated as normal, the final product is just right. Experimentation will yield best results for your teas.

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Permalink Reply by Kelly Nagel on July 13, 2009 at 2:12pm

This is how we do it too. May I suggest you try all your teas iced so you can recommend which teas taste best iced. since we are int he south, we also get alot of requests for sweet tea so I add about 1 oz of simple syrup to the top.

John P said:

Slightly heaping Tablespoon of tea leaves - 8 oz hot water. steep 4-5 minutes. Pour through tea strainer into cup full of ice. As the hot tea is twice as concentrated as normal, the final product is just right. Experimentation will yield best results for your teas.

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Permalink Reply by Mr. F on July 13, 2009 at 2:16pm

Hey, John--
So it probably doesn't help that we steep the tea in paper tea bags first... Well otherwise I guess we're doing it pretty much right. I've yet to hear a complaint, but, as I rarely drink tea, I was a bit suspicious of our method, especially when it comes to lighter teas. Your answer makes plenty of sense though. I feel like I was asking kind of a silly question, but hey, when in doubt...)
Thanks!

John P said:

Slightly heaping Tablespoon of tea leaves - 8 oz hot water. steep 4-5 minutes. Pour through tea strainer into cup full of ice. As the hot tea is twice as concentrated as normal, the final product is just right. Experimentation will yield best results for your teas.

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Permalink Reply by Mr. F on July 13, 2009 at 2:21pm

Hi, Kelly--
Yep, it sounds like everybody does it the same way we do (with the exception of the tea bags that we use, which, now that I think about it, seems kind of wasteful, since we have a tea strainer handy at all times...). You make a good point, though, that we should sample our teas so that we can provide good advice to the customer. Of course, we offer about 60 varieties, so we've got our work cut out for us!
Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by John P on July 13, 2009 at 5:05pm

Best to brew without tea bags if possible. This allows for fuller expansion of the tea leaves, greater opening of the pores, more flavor.

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Permalink Reply by Selina on July 13, 2009 at 9:03pm

u want to create a concentrate to pour over ice.. so we use the same amount of loose leaf tea we would serve hot (2 tsp - 16oz beverage), but only put half the amount of hot water to steep it in. after u let it steep for the desired amount of time (depending on the type of tea, of course..), we pour VERY SLOWLY down the middle of the cup FULL of ice -- we've discovered that the slower you pour and just one path straight down the middle, you don't melt as much ice as you normally would if you just dumped the hot tea over it.

i took an iced tea class at the last world tea expo in vegas.. and if u have a good iced tea brewer (they even recommended the Mr. Coffee Iced Tea Brewer that u can get at Target), here are some guidelines to go by:
- 1 oz tea = 1 gallon iced tea concentrate (of course u can play around with this formula accdg to taste)
- NEVER REFRIGERATE iced tea, it develops a lot of the flavors in the fridge, even if the fridge is empty (coolant)
- iced tea should be a 1:1 ratio of tea concentrate to ice. your tea concentrate should be 1/3 hot concentrate to 2/3 room temp water (just like espresso, u don't want to shock the tea)

uhhh... that's all i could squeeze out right now, long day at work. hope this helps!

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Permalink Reply by Benza Lance on July 14, 2009 at 8:32am

What I found to be really effective is if you double the amount of tea per water, and use room temperature water. Super tasty, wont melt ice, and honestly, $3 for a made-to-order awesome iced tea sounds about right.

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Permalink Reply by Mr. F on July 14, 2009 at 10:37am

Room temp, huh? Does it need to steep any longer?

Benza Lance said:

What I found to be really effective is if you double the amount of tea per water, and use room temperature water. Super tasty, wont melt ice, and honestly, $3 for a made-to-order awesome iced tea sounds about right.

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Permalink Reply by Benza Lance on July 14, 2009 at 11:01am

Thought I forgot something.
Step time is doubled. Sounds weird, but works like a charm. And I usually do em in french presses.

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Permalink Reply by Mr. F on July 14, 2009 at 11:16am

I like this idea the best-- I'll definitely give it a try tomorrow. I doubt we'll be raising any prices, though... it's Lincoln Park Chicago, and our prices are surely high enough already... ;)
Thanks!

Benza Lance said:

Thought I forgot something.
Step time is doubled. Sounds weird, but works like a charm. And I usually do em in french presses.

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