I do declare, my southern roots are showin’!
I asked a friend today if Canadians made sun tea, and I sort of got the impression that it hasn’t worked its way up here. Well my Northern friends! It’s easy as cherry pie. And yes! We get enough sunlight in Canada to make it.
Grab one of those glass jars you’ve been saving, fill it with water, and stick a tea bag of your choice in it. Cap it, and go stick it in the sun.
In about three or four hours, you’ll have yourself some tea. Now go stick it in the fridge.
Yup, that’s it.
Sun tea is the closest thing I’ve seen to properly brewed ice tea this side of the border. It’s got a lovely mellow flavour without the harshness that can come from being steeped in boiling water. It’s also very nice on those hot days like today.
Down south, we had these huge things that we made sun tea in it, but unless you have a lot of drinkers, I don’t recommend using anything larger than a 1 litre jar. I’m finding that these 500ml ones are good for individual size.
I actually went looking online about sun tea, and there were a whole bunch of people questioning its safety. I think I just about fell out of my chair. So let me put any fears to rest by instructing you on how to apply common sense to make sure you don’t poison yourself by drinking sun tea.
- If your water is undrinkable unless it is boiled, don’t make sun tea.
- Don’t use a dirty jar to make sun tea.
- If you drink directly from a jar of sun tea and get your germs in it, don’t put it in the fridge and decide to drink more than a day later.
- If you don’t intend to drink it in the next day or two, don’t make it now.
- If it looks like slime is growing in it, throw it out and make new sun tea.
Happy drinking!