h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Since this entry was first published, Lipton has introduced "Cold Brew Iced Tea" in bags.

As a true connoisseur of iced tea (everyone who grows up in the South (U.S.) is), I am reluctant to say that this isn't half bad.

Disregarding name and the package illustration, this works best if you do not use ice cold water as it will be weak. Luke warm water with ice added after it has had a few minutes to "steep" works best (as suggested by the instructions).

This is a good solution for iced tea drinkers when they're away from home. I took some to work and it worked out well for a while, but then I finally broke down and just bought an iced tea maker for the office. I'm not kidding about being an iced tea connoisseur.

When I brew iced tea I use two large bags of Luzianne iced tea bags and two single size bags of either Celestial Seasonings Mandarin orange spice or, better yet, Republic of Tea Ginger Peach. The small bags aren't enough to make the tea taste fruity. They just add a bit of interest.

What exactly does an iced tea maker do? All you need to do with iced tea is steep the bags (or leaves) in cold (or lukewarm) water.

We've started doing this at work, incidentally. Like most restaurants here we have have a combination tea/coffee brewer, like this http://www.coffeemakersetc.com/images/TB3.jpg If you want to make tea, you put a 4oz tea bag in the cone, slide it into place, then hot (not boiling, unfortunately) water trickles onto the bag and the brewed tea trickles into the urn, while a stream of cold water comes from a spout at the back and fills the urn, diluting the tea.

Now, we only use it for coffee. When we want to make tea we fill the urn with cold water and toss in a tea bag. About 30 minutes later we have iced tea that tastes so much better than the hot-brewed-and-diluted version from the brewer.

You should NEVER boil iced tea. That makes it bitter and nasty.

The iced tea maker I use just steeps the tea in hot water before diluting it by pouring it over ice.

Now that you mention it, I think I know how to make my ice tea maker work even better.

Instead of putting ice in the pitcher and the tea bags in the 'steeper'(?) I should just put room temperature water in the pitcher (after filling the tea maker), toss the bags in the pitcher and then let the hot water pour right in. That way it wont get bitter from the nearly boiling water and it won't be diluted. I'll need to get some tongs from home to fish the tea bags out, but that will work.