Sun Tea Time!

When I lived in Orlando,  Florida, some 30 years ago, the garden apartments and townhouses surrounded a nice courtyard. Within the courtyard was the swimming pool and laundry room and all of the units had patios that faced it. While taking a walk one day, I noticed the strangest thing: practically every patio had a jar on it, filled with some brown liquid. I had never seen such a thing and could not, for the life of me, figure out what those jars contained. Motor oil? Cooking grease? Were they some sort of traps for bugs? Each day that I'd see them, I became more and more puzzled, until a neighbor who had lived in Florida all her life, solved the mystery for me. They were sun tea jars. SUN TEA JARS? Yep! Sun tea jars! She went on to explain that the best way to brew iced tea was to set water and tea bags into a glass jar and let the sun slowly do the brewing, thus bringing out the ultimate flavor of the tea leaves. What madness is this? I was intrigued as she continued to let me know that you could set out one jar...

or multiple jars.....

big  jars......

little jars.....

plain old regular jars....

or even fancy jars with a built-in spigot!

You can use any flavor of tea that you wish and some people even go so far as to load the jar with lemon slices or mint leaves to steep along with the tea. From then on, I was hooked!

I have a jar with a spigot, which makes pouring much easier as the jar can be quite heavy. I fill my jar with warm water, then add 5-6 tea bags. I like to make my sun tea a bit strong to compensate for the melting ice when served. I place a piece of plastic wrap over the opening to keep out ants, and top it with the screw-on lid. Then, I set my jar outside on the deck in full sun and go about my business for the rest of the day, knowing that in the evening, I'll have a tall glass of fabulously refreshing iced sun tea! I can almost taste it! My drink repertoire is fairly small, generally consisting of ice water and the occasional iced coffee, but when the weather begins to warm and the sun shines brightly, my thirsty thoughts turn to sun tea time!

Here's a fun idea for a cook-out - set out small Mason jars (one per guest) and two or three large jars for refills and have them all brew at once. By the time your guests arrive, you can just add ice and serve. Brilliant! Go ahead, give it a try!

Thank you so much for stopping by today! Y'all make me very happy with your visits and sweet comments and I so appreciate them! Have a wonderful day! Hugs, Leena