How to Make Homemade Iced Tea
Homemade iced tea is so simple to make and much yummier than any store bought versions. This post breaks down everything you need to know about how to make homemade iced tea with no specialty kitchen items required. If you can boil a pot of water, you can be on your way to enjoying refreshing homemade iced tea.
I have a dirty little secret. I am not much for drinking water. True, we require water to live. But, most of the time I find plain water boring. I do jazz it up from time to time, making things like winter spa water.
To be totally honest with you though, I pretty much exist on iced tea. In our fridge we always have salad greens, milk and chocolate syrup for our daughter, half and half, and a huge pot of homemade iced tea.
On any given day of the year, even in the middle of January, we have a pot of iced tea. There’s nothing like that refreshing iced tea.
Our homemade iced tea is so good.
It’s the perfect strength for us (not super strong), with a nice bit of lemony pucker from a healthy dose of lemon juice, and a hint of sweet. You could sweeten it with sugar, but we normally sweeten ours with Splenda or Stevia. And of course, you could totally omit the sweetener if you prefer.
How to Make Homemade Iced Tea
Before we started making homemade iced tea, I thought making iced tea at home would be really complicated. Or else why would they sell powdered iced tea mixes?
Well, I can tell you that making a big batch of homemade iced tea is so easy that I literally have no idea why they even make powdered iced tea mix.
All you have to do is boil water in a big pot (we use a stainless steel stock pot) with tea bags in it. We use 5 tea bags for about 3.5 gallons of water. You can absolutely adjust the amount of tea you use if you like it super strong, or use less if you prefer.
That’s it.
Even on my worst, most tired, mommy burned out days, I am capable of boiling water.
The hardest part? Waiting for the homemade tea to cool.
Once it’s cool, we pour it into a 3 liter serving pitcher, and add lemon juice and sweetener. That’s it. Boom. Refreshing homemade iced tea for days.
Customize Your Homemade Iced Tea
You can absolutely customize this tea recipe to suit your tastes. Prefer your tea very weak? No sweat. Use less tea bags and don’t boil the water as long. Like it strong? Boil a bit longer and add more tea bags. Don’t like lemon in your tea? Cool. Leave it out. No big deal, you do you.
Other things you could do to fully customize your homemade iced tea:
- Switch your tea bags up. We use decaf (yes I KNOW, but I drink so much coffee that if I have any more caffeine I’m pretty sure my head would explode) black tea, but have fun with it. Try different flavors until you find what you love. Peach tea bags perhaps? Fancy Passion tea? Actual caffeinated black tea? All great options.
- Use more or less lemon juice. We like our tea pretty citrusy so we use a lot of lemon juice. But feel free to use just a squeeze or none at all.
- Add some fresh fruit during the brewing process. Strawberry tea? Yes, please.
- Or! Add some fruit syrups like Raspberry Simple Syrup for Drinks or Blueberry Simple Syrup Recipe! Extra yummy!
- Feel free to make a smaller batch. We drink a ton of iced tea, so this large batch works for us, but if you aren’t a huge tea drinker, cut it in half or even in thirds. (I’d use 3 tea bags for a half batch and probably 2 for a third.)
- Don’t forget to use it as a base for The Most Refreshing Boozy Arnie Palmer Cocktail (John Daly Drink)!
Looking for other summery drink recipes? Try these:
Ingredients
- 5 black tea bags
- 3.5 gallons of water
- 2 cups lemon juice divided
- 2 cups of sweetener divided*
Instructions
- Fill a large stock pot with water. Add 5 black tea bags to the pot. Heat on the stove until it comes to a boil. As soon as it comes to a boil, turn the heat off. Let seep on the stovetop with no heat for at least 4 hours but overnight is better. Then transfer pot to fridge.
- To serve, fill up a 3 L pitcher with tea. Stir in about half cup of the lemon juice and a half cup of your preferred sweetener. Feel free to adjust those to suit your tastes. Serve cold with ice.
- Recipe makes 4-4.5 3L pitchers of tea.
Notes
- I use sugar free sweetener in my homemade iced tea. We like Splenda or Stevia in this.
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OXO Good Grips Large Wooden Spoon, Beech
IMUSA USA L300-40317 Stainless Steel Stock Pot 20-Quart, Silver
