Published July 1, 1999.
We determined that a good iced tea recipe depended on doing a lot of little things right. The key to strong but not bitter flavor was water temperature. And unless the quality of your tap water is very, very good, spring water is the way to go; it produced tea with the freshest, cleanest, clearest look and taste. We found that a ratio of 5 teabags to 1 quart of water worked best in our iced tea recipe. The amount of sugar can be varied from 1 to 6 tablespoons, depending on taste.
Depending on the quality of your tap water, you may want to use bottled spring water to make both the tea itself and your ice cubes. Doubling this recipe is easy, but use a large saucepan and expect the water to take a few minutes longer to reach the proper temperature. For a slightly stronger iced tea, reduce the amount of ice to 3 cups. Garnish with a thin lemon wedge to squeeze into the tea, if you like.
Dear Friend,
These days, it’s pretty easy to get free recipes on the Internet. I’m sure a search for “roast chicken recipe” will turn up thousands and thousands. But, as with so much on the web, you should tread lightly if you don’t know the source.
In America’s Test Kitchen, our motto is, “Recipes that Work,” and our mission is to be your trusted source for recipes that work every time you use them. Our test cooks spend their days obsessively testing recipes until they offer consistently great results. As we like to say here, “We make the mistakes so you don’t have to.”
CooksIllustrated.com is the only place you can find not only 20 years' worth of our foolproof recipes, but also objective ratings of cookware, and blind taste tests for hundreds of everyday supermarket ingredients (hey, without the proper ingredients and equipment you can still run into problems — no matter how good the recipe).
Let me make a simple, no-nonsense offer. Try out our website FREE for a 14-Day, No-Hassle Trial Offer. I’m pretty confident that CooksIllustrated.com will quickly become an invaluable resource for everything from quick, weeknight suppers to huge, holiday feasts for family and friends.
Thanks for your consideration,
Christopher Kimball
Founder and Publisher
