There’s your problem. Do yourself a favour and get some REAL tea. My favourite brand is Dilmah, which you can buy online from www.dilmahtea.com or, as I’ve recently discovered, Amazon.
Brew it hot, then let it chill, before adding your sugar/lemon/lime. A little grate of the citrus zest adds a nice zing.
Cold brewing keeps tea (and coffee) from tasting bitter. Plus, it’s pretty much no effort.
3 Luzianne iced tea bags, pull off string and throw in gallon pitcher.
Put pitcher under tap and fill with cold water.
Put on lid and set on counter
Leave for work or go to bed, whichever time of day applies
When back from work or up from bed, put pitcher in fridge (pour some over ice if want a glass first)
Repeat whenever pitcher empties
I always laugh at people who actually buy a special “brewer” for iced tea. No offense if anyone here has one. When I told a co-worker about the above method, and that you can do the same with coffee in a french press to make iced coffee, it was truly a revelation for her. She always thought it was some effort or needed to boil water or some such, so never made any at home because she thought it would be a hassle. Now she has a pitcher like mine always full of iced tea in the fridge!
The only reason to hot brew iced tea is to dissolve sugar in it. If you plan to drink it unsweetened (as I do) then coldbrewing is so much easier. Although if you do like it sweetened but want the convenience of coldbrewing, you can make up a big batch of simple syrup and keep that in the fridge as well. Just make your tea a bit strong to compensate for the extra water.
No offense taken, but you can laugh all you want and I’ll still love my tea maker. I got it for about $15 at Wal-mart, so it wasn’t a major investment and I can brew up a pitcher at a moment’s notice–I’m not always good about planning ahead. 
It’s very convenient and easy to use. The tea maker comes in especially handy when I’ve got a lot of guests for dinner. If we finish off one pitcher, it takes just a few minutes to have another full pitcher ready to go. Cold brewing can’t do that.
Same, 8 stash teabags russian caravan, 2 teabags lemon zinger, 2 teabags peppermint ‘tea’. We loves out mr IceTea maker. Best investment.
Though we use margarine tubs hijacked from Moms house to make ice pucks for it. Fill with water, pop a couple sprigs fresh mint and some slices lemon and freeze with the lid on.
Excellent idea! I’ll have to try that.
Put tea bags (four or 5, depending on the type) and ½ cup of Splenda at the bottom of a gallon pitcher, add hot water out of the tap, and let steep for a bit. Then add cold water out of the tap, stir, and place in the fridge.
Add me in, too. I stir in a tablespoon of lemon juice, and a teaspoon and a half of equal.
Good stuff, and it won’t rot out your teeth.
I bring about half a teapot of water to a boil, throw in a large (family size) tea bag, let steep for a half hour (sometimes longer if I forget). Then I pour the tea into a gallon pitcher and fill with cold water. That’s it. Mr. HP drinks massive quantities of iced tea, so I do this at least 5 times a week. We don’t drink sweet tea. I like to have a glass now and then with half MinuteMaid Light lemonade mixed in.
Pour about 1/4 inch or so of sugar in a 2 qt pot. Fill it with cold water. Bring it to a boil. Put in 10-12 teabags, whatever kind you like (regular old plain, mint, raspberry, whatever), steep for about 15 minutes, pour into gallon jug filled with ice, top off with cold water, enjoy.
Easier to do it than to type directions.
I drink quite a bit of tea, and I’d rather skip drinking tea rather than drink Lipton. It tastes way too bitter to me.
I generally make sun tea for iced tea.
If I’m going to make it, I go all out and make sweet tea instead.
You might also considering adding one single flavored teabag with the black Lipton. I often make a big pitcher of black semi-sweet-tea very similar to yours, but add one green jasmine or Earl Grey bag. It adds a suble extra flavor without overwhelming the natural yumminess that is black tea.
I’ve seen what comes out of the water heater, and I do not cook with that water. It’s sanitary; it won’t kill you (obviously,) but it’s sludgy and gross. The temperature changes cause all sorts of things to precipitate out of your water and collect on the bottom. I won’t even fill a pot to boil pasta with it, I always start from cold water. It’s fine for washing dishes with though.
According to my mother-the-diabetic-nutrition-freak, sweetened tea is not that much better for you than soft drinks. Glycemically speaking, that is.
I drink it by the gallon, but that’s just because I prefer it to soft drinks.
That’s what faucet filters are for.
May I presume that by this she means sugar-sweetened tea?
Oh, good point!
Doesn’t that apply more to the commercially sweetened tea, and to the more southern-style “sweet tea?” (like at McDonald’s - blech)
A teaspoon added to 16 oz of tea adds 15 calories, rather than 180 or more calories for 12 oz of commercially sweetened stuff. Of course people should still be careful, but I like a teaspoon here and there though I usually just do the unsweetened thing.
Count me in for using hot water to dissolve the sugar.
I use an old coffee maker left by a former gf to heat the water. It beeps when done and has an auto shut off, so I don’t space out and forget that it gets hot. I boil one quart of water and throw it in the 2 qt jug. Pour the sugar on top of that and shake to dissolve while the second quart boils. Throw in 6 regular tea bags and let sit 10 minutes. Much more than that seems to taste bitter. I usually throw it in the fridge overnight to let it cool.
I don’t drink coffee, so this is my caffeine fix. Also, I drink a lot of tea, so both my 2 qt plastic jugs have a slight brown tinge to them. I know they’re clean when I pull them out of the dishwasher, but they don’t look it.