California Style Iced Tea, Home Brew

This is my method for making iced tea, I am not sure if it really is California style but I figure why not give it a a thirst quenching name. Anyway usually when you go to the store and get your iced tea powder mix, you don't even need to use hot water, you just need to determine how sweet you want it and then go nuts. Too much sugar? Who cares, that's what dentistry is for right?

Well that's all well and good if you don't really care about your health or your teeth. If your like me and you need something with just a little sweetness to it but really takes care of your thirst for cheap, here's how you can make that drink for cheap. You can mix anything using this method, I just find that this works best for me, and it always turns out great. After Eating the Fish and Rice that you can also see on one of my other Instructable called "Fried fish and steamed rice", I was so thirsty and needed something to hit the spot just right. Well this recipe is a doozy.

On a side note, my wife likes these mixes because they are so light and refreshing with just a dash of sweetness. It may take a little longer to produce but the final product is worth every effort.

As always feel free to comment or drop some advice and as usual, enjoy!!!

Boil a full Kettle of water

Find the largest mug you have and place four bags of your choice of black tea inside. Secure the wait of a small spoon up against and over the bags to prevent them from floating, this will keep the bags immersed in the water, steeping them uniformly. Interesting to know, putting a metal spoon in your tea will cool it faster by transferring the heat/energy through the spoon. This produces more surface area to be cooled, the heat is then dissipated into the air around it or passing by it. Now fill her up and set it aside.

Find some honey or if you prefer some other sweetener that works too. Pour whatever you choose into a mug that makes me laugh inside every time I see it to approximately 1/3 of the way full. Filling the rest with hot water, be sure to stir and mix thoroughly then set it aside for now.

Keep in mind, people are finding more and more these days that even the latest and greatest sugars are not only bad for you but can't yet quite compare to sugars produced by, and in, nature. The more natural your ingredients are, the better you will feel when you drink this.

Find a nice juicy one. A few really simple ways to know if its ripe is to give her a sniff, they usually start to stink when ripening, if you squish it the skin should squirt a little, leaving a residue on your hand and they get kinda squishy like .............. something squishy.

Anyway, along side that, go ahead and find yourself a couple of containers. One which needs to be approximately 1 liter in volume for holding the fruit to be mashing as well as watering the mix and another extra large container for holding all the ingredients until its ready for transfer.

Now, ( if you want to do this part like I did) prep yourself a really sharp knife.

We are going to begin our incision not from the head,

but rather from the side.

Slice in half.

Slice the halves into quarters.

Now that we have some cut slices, let me quickly show you what I do next. Eventually all pieces are to be cut the same way.

Take a slice and (starting at one end) draw the blade of the knife in a light saw like fashion between the pulp and the skin, thus filleting the slices. You can trim and clean them up before you place the slices in to be mashed. The less skin you have the easier it'll be in the end when you want to clean it out. Do this for every slice and then cut and clean each of those slices in order to separate the skin and excess bits. Throw it all in the container and mash it up well.

Once you have it all mashed up, use a perforated spoon to take out as many pieces of skin as you can, then leave the rest of the pulp, unless you prefer not to. I recommend mixing it by taking the 1 liter glass and pouring two glasses of THE COLDEST WATER YOU HAVE EVER SEEEEEEENNN!!!!

Start with the cold because if your using the plastic containers to mix the ingredients you might not want to start with the hot ingredients since in my experience it may change the taste of the drink your making.

Now transfer it to another container. I prefer working with class at all times. Plastic, even though its cheap, I find that some types tends to give off something into the liquids contained and changes its taste.

Since The glass container is full and made of glass it should get even colder faster, compared to an insulated plastic container.

The final product is an amber gold and ready to quench my thirst.