About Tea Bags

“If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?”
– Will Rogers (1879-1935)

I knew the title of this blog would get Tom’s attention. He has a thing for tea bags.

It’s still a bit hot in Socal right now and Tom and I have been moving our project cars around in the shop. You can work up a pretty good sweat, especially in the concrete cave we call our shop. Drinking water is alright, and necessary, but sometimes you want something more. Tom’s not old enough to drink anything harder than grape nehi so that pretty much leaves him drinking water all day.

So I get this craving for some home brewed sweet tea. I explain it to Tom and he has no idea what I’m talking about. He’s a California kid so he really doesn’t understand how much sweet tea means to a good ole boy. Sweet tea is the champagne of the South. I explained to Tom how to make sweet tea and he seemed kinda lost on the idea. He did get excited about tea bags though. I was explaining that there are many types of tea bags, and he started giggling like a teen age girl meeting one of the back street boys.

So I decided that I would share my sweet tea recipe with everyone here.
Take note:

Fill up a dutch oven pot 3/4 full of water and put it on the burner.
Tie 3 Luzianne tea bags to a large wooden spoon and lay the spoon over the pot with the tea bags suspended in the water. It must be Luzianne type tea. Nothing else will do. Put a pinch of baking powder in the water to neutralize the tannic acid from the tea. This is critical!

As the water is heating up, you need to start a second pot with one cup of water on another burner to heat up. As the second pot of water heats up, pour 1 and a half cups of sugar into the pot and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Once the sugar is completely dissolved, you can remove the pot from the burner.

By this time your first pot should be hot and the tea fully steeped. You can remove the tea bags by lifting the wooden spoon. DO NOT SQUEEZE THE TEA BAGS. Let the tea drain into the pot, but do not squeeze the tea bags. This will bring particles and acids out of the bags and into your tea.

At this point you can mix the sugar mixture into the tea and transfer it into pitchers. Store in the fridge and serve in a tall glass filled to the rim with ice. Under no circumstances should you attempt to add crap like mint or lemon. That will just ruin your sweet tea and you’ll have to dispose of the entire batch.

I have provided this recipe as a public service, and I hope that it is useful.
I’m on my way home to make a batch of tea now so I can fight the heat tomorrow.

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