Solar Powered Tea

Growing up, sun tea was a summer staple in our family.  Even before I drank it, I watched as the water turned clear brown with time in the sun before the jug was moved carefully into the refrigerator.  I made sun tea quite a bit when we lived in Ithaca, where we had a huge porch with lots of sunny space perfect for safely brewing tea in glass jugs.  In our home in Chicago, for some reason, I've rarely made sun tea.  Perhaps I was thinking inside the box, imagining the only place sun tea could be made was the second-story deck, which would require a trip through the hallway and up to the deck.  The fact that I would make this journey for a glass of tea- not to mention a pitcher- certainly doesn't help explain the lack of sun tea here.  Whatever the reason, there hasn't been much recently.


Until now.  I have decided that this summer, our home will have iced tea again.  I finally decided to try making window sun tea, and it's working beautifully!  I'm experimenting with varieties of tea.  Here's my batch brewing this week- organic herbal sun tea using 5 bags of Trader Joe's Renew herbal tea blend.  

As you can tell by the red hue, there's a good amount of hibiscus in there.  I've also made green and pomegranate white teas, as well as a combo- which looked a little strange (green and red liquids make a weird color brown when combined) but tasted delicious.  By the way, if you're wondering about the cover over the pitcher, it's to keep Ziggy from drinking it.  I rubber-banded a paper towel over the top to keep her little kitty paws out of my tea.


I love having a tasty, naturally sugar-free, healthy alternative to water as I'm drinking for two.  The best part of sun tea is that I don't have to boil water to make it.  It makes itself!