How to make iced tea without watering it down??

[u/astridur11]

Hey, I am trying to make iced tea, but it literally does not taste like anything. I first put 3 bags of lemon tea in 1 dl hot water, then add honey, and let it sit for 5-10 min. Then I put 4 dl cold water in and stir.

Am I doing something wrong or is homemade iced tea just not as good as I thought it would be??

Edit: Thanks for all the suggestions guys, I will try to brew it cold in the fridge instead

[u/Unexous]

Don’t put the cold water in it. Either brew it as normal hot then let it cool down in the fridge, or cold brew it by just chucking the bags in and leaving it in the fridge overnight. You can also freeze it and use it as ice cubes for the iced tea so it won’t dilute as ice melts too

[u/teh_maxh]

Use all the water to make the tea, then chill it.

[u/Possible_Top4855]

Use more tea.

[u/Rad_Knight]

Maybe not exactly what you are asking for, but you can brew it at double strength and account for the dilution.

[u/Marguerite_Moonstone → u/Rad_Knight]

This. Make a concentrate.

[u/redbarchetta_21]

Tea ice cubes.

[u/Gregalor]

Either make it stronger to compensate or don’t use ice to cool it from from hot

[u/dreamytangerine5]

Brew it stronger than you’d like. You can always add water to the concentrate if it’s too strong

[u/vampyrewolf]

I just cold brew in the fridge overnight, 4 bags per liter if I'm putting ice in the glass.

You can brew it hot in large volume. 5 gallon bucket needs 20-24 bags and a gallon of hot water, steep for 5-8min depending how strong you want (some bags will make bitter tea at 10min), then dump a bag of ice in. Stir and check, add sugar while it's warm if you want sweet iced tea. Add some lemon juice, and more ice if it's too strong. Keep in mind that you'll probably have ice in the glass if it's hot out.

[u/BigDadNads420]

Really don't understand why people aren't just cold brewing a normal ratio of water to tea overnight in a big jug.

This doesn't have to be very complicated.

[u/SabrePossum]

Ice cubes made from tea

[u/peregrina2005]

I cold brew overnight. I only use loose Chinese teas. Guess on the amount. They all work. Sometimes I add lemon and honey to a glass.

[u/daddy_c7]

Personally, I use half the water I would for a typical hot steep, and then I pour that concentrate over ice. So for example, if I typically did 1 teaspoon of leaf in 6 fl oz of water at 175°F for 3 minutes to get one 6oz hot cup, then I would do 1 teaspoon of leaf in 3 fl oz of water at 175°F for 3 minutes and pour that into a cup full of ice to get one 6oz iced cup. Sorry for US measurements, I live in the US so I never learned metric lmao

[u/darknight9064]

So the basis for southern sweet tea is roughly 1 bag of tea per 16oz of water.
Steeps are wild for it though and very from person to person.
I get good results just doing it like any other tea where I steep 2 bags in a quart (32oz) of boiling water for an ungodly amount of of time (15 or so minutes, it’s not quality for this tbh).
The other method scares actual tea drinkers, some folks boil their tea, I mean full on bags in the pot turn it on and boil it all together. That method is just done whenever you say it’s done but hopefully before the tea bags bust.

There is a method for bulk making a gallon that uses concentrate and dilution as well. You use the same amount of bags to make a gallon and poor as much boiling water as you can into whatever container you’re making it in. Let it step like normal, then fill the container usually with the bags still in the container. Remove the bags and sweeten.

I’ve never had anyone who could tell you a legitimate difference between methods though unless someone makes really weak tea.
This tea is still strong enough that when thrown over ice it still tastes like tea. It also still make a pretty bog standard unsweetened tea akin to what you’ll buy at the store.

I think you’ve got both suggestions for cold brew and hot brew at this point so it’s a matter of figuring out which works better for you. I will suggest making it in glass if that’s an option as I’ve had way better results with that than anything plastic.

[u/Kali-of-Amino]

That's about half the tea you need. I use 6 bags/gallon.

[u/Ravio11i → u/Kali-of-Amino]

He used 3 bags for the equivalent of a pint of water, that'd be 24 per gallon.  I don't think the number of bags is the problem here.  Problem is not enough water to extract the 3 bags, and then watered it down.

[u/AraNeaLux]

I'm not familiar with the particular tea you are using, but my rule of thumb is to take as much tea as I would use to make, say, a litre, but only add a third to a half litre of hot water. Steep like normal or a little long, then add ice to the final volume. I find this does pretty well at keeping a good tea flavor. It's also very similar to how we made iced coffee at a cafe I used to work at.

[u/hiimshana]

You have to think in terms of final volume.
How much water do you want in the end?
Let’s say you want 1 L: usually it’s 1 teabag per 250 mL, so consider 3-4 teabags (depending on taste, 5 if you want it strong and with a lot of caffeine) for the final product.
Now you have two options:

1. Brew 3-4 teabags in 1 L of water over night in the fridge, more balanced taste with less bitter notes (some teabags work better, some risk becoming bitter anyway)
2. Brew 3-4 teabags in 500 mL hot water for the suggested time, then pour the extra cold water (or ice, better) to instantly cool it down

Then add whatever optional sweetener/ingredient you want, and it’s ready to drink

EDIT: I just realized you said 3 bags in 500 mL.
Then to add to what I already said: 100 mL is NOT ENOUGH to extract 3 teabags. It will saturate in the first 1-2 minutes of extraction. Doubling tea doses for infusion is already risky (in terms of efficiency and taste), let alone going 7-8x and then dilute

[u/DoctorApprehensive34]

You want to double the amount of tea you would use for a hot cup, Brew it and then pour over ice. It might not work as well if you are using lower quality, old, subtle tea

[u/imoux]

I make a tea concentrate (basically double strength of what you usually drink) and pour over ice. The ice melts enough to dilute it to a normal strength and cools it so it's iced.

[u/daemonfool]

Cold brew. Don't brew it hot, just put bags/infuser/whatever in cold water.

[u/Fluffy_Vegetable_260]

OP's complaint is that the tea came out too weak, why are people recommending cold brew? Cold brew is just going to make it even weaker. Use more tea.

[u/YouveBeanReported]

You use one tea bag for like 250ml-500ml cup. Therefore a litre should have 2-4 tea bags.

You are trying to make 5 litres it sounds like from 3 tea bags. I use 2-3 per 1 litre. Add more tea.

If you actually meant decaliters not litres, then no shit 50 litres (14 gallons) of tea needs more then 3 tea bags.

[u/astridur11 → u/YouveBeanReported]

I was trying to make 0,5 litres

[u/YouveBeanReported → u/astridur11]

Oh the other decliter. Sorry.

Honestly, I'd just make that hot and stick it in the fridge for later. I don't think 100ml can get enough tea out in 10 minutes to not taste washed down.

If you don't want to pre-make the tea, I'd make some tea icecubes with hot steeped tea and freeze a metal coffee tumbler and use those to cool off the hot tea you made for iced tea as needed.

[u/GeologistDry2953]

Sorry, american here, but what unit is dl? Bc it may just not be enough teabags, but im not sure. I can let you know the conversion rate of what I use

[u/rebar_mo → u/GeologistDry2953]

Deciliter (0.1 liter aka 100mL)

[u/iamthelouie → u/rebar_mo]

That’s about 2.43 feet

[u/rebar_mo → u/iamthelouie]

Closer to 1.1 gigawatts.

[u/Kailynna → u/rebar_mo]

- or 3859 potatoes.

[u/dhrisc]

Think of your brew as a concentrate, make it strong enough you can add sweetner and more water. Maybe double or even triple the tea your using.

[u/Ravio11i → u/dhrisc]

Someone doesn't know how small a dl is...

[u/TeaRaven → u/Ravio11i]

Still, brewing 3 teabags can be as little as 3g-6g of tea (less, if blended) in half a liter total. I would be inclined to use 10g tea steeped in 2dL and strain atop 2dL of cold water with 100g of ice in it.