Delicious and refreshing sun tea recipes

Tea is a popular drink any time of the year, but get yours ready for summertime sipping with a little help from the sun!

Keep yourself refreshed with a freshly brewed jug of sun tea. Using the power of the sun to naturally steep your tea will result in a smooth, mellow tea flavour that is perfectly suited to quenching the thirst on a hot summer day.

Sun tea

Making this summertime favourite couldn’t be any easier!

Serving size: 1 litre makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

• Tea bags, preferably black tea
• Filtered water
• Sugar or honey, if desired
• Sliced lemon to garnish, if desired

Directions:

1. Thoroughly wash and sanitize a large glass jar or pitcher, preferably one with a tight-fitting lid. The size will depend on how much tea you want to make.
2. Fill the container with water, using filtered water if possible.
3. Add the tea bags. A good starting-off point is to use two or three tea bags per litre of water, and modify if necessary.
4. Seal the jar tightly with the lid or by covering it with plastic wrap.
5. Place the jar in the direct sun for approximately 3–5 hours to allow the sun to gently steep the tea. Taste the tea often, and remove from the sun when the desired strength is reached.
6. Sweeten with honey or sugar if desired, and refrigerate.
7. Serve over ice, and garnish with lemon.

Sun-kissed infusions

While using black tea to make sun tea is a wonderful choice, there are several other options. Have fun experimenting with your tea time favourites, or try blackcurrant, raspberry leaf or green tea for something different. Another way to pump up the flavour of your ice tea is to add a simple syrup infusion after it has been brewed.

Simple syrup infusion

Ingredients:

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup water
• Infusion ingredients; see below for suggestions

Directions:

More about tea

Tea 101: Types of tea & their health benefits
Brew a better cup of tea
Host a bridal shower tea