One of the sure signs of summer when I was growing up was when Mom would break out the iced tea. Every week during the warm months, she would make a gallon of what I called her "industrial strength" lemon iced tea, so named because of its infamous thirst-quenching properties. Sometimes it was so effective, I had a hard time finishing a glass of it. This fabled beverage is fairly hard-to describe in common iced tea terms- the best description I can give for it is "balanced". It was a semi-sweet tea, not headache-inducing, thirst expanding sweetness like seen from bottled iced teas or certain Southern "sweet tea" recipes, nor was it painfully sharp unsweetened tea one found at restaurants. The lemon in it also avoided whelming the senses. It had lemon in it, yes, but it was still very much iced tea.

Now that I'm on my own, I've become something of a tea enthusiast. Homemade iced tea is a great day-to-day beverage to have on hand. It's cheap, it's easy to make in large quantities, and it's an alternative to water that can be made to be much less terrible for you then many store-bought solutions.

First, if you're making it at home, iced tea is quite inexpensive. A pack of 20 tea bags usually runs about $2.65, or 13 cents per bag. I use about five bags per half-gallon, plus 5 teaspoons sugar. The sugar is $1.79 per 5 pounds, so it's practically adding no cost. The only other ingredient is water, which is also almost cost-free at this volume, so I end up paying 66 cents per half-gallon. Consider that 20 ounces of store-bought iced tea can cost $1.25 - $1.50, and you see we have a real deal.

Most other drink alternatives don't even come close. Fruit juice is in the two dollar range, and is often loaded with the dreaded high fructose corn syrup. Milk and orange juice, the two alternatives to iced tea that might actually be better for you are 2 to 3 times more expensive per half gallon, at least. The only drink that seems to match it in price is soda, which is often loaded with much more sugar, carbonation, and other stuff I'd rather not have in my primary beverage. (I'm not a total health nut, though- I drink soda probably several times a week. I'm more interested in reducing my intake of unhealthy beverages, not eliminating them. Otherwise, I'd have to give up my daily cup of coffee.)

Besides being inexpensive, iced tea is also quite easy to make. Here's how Mom used to do it:

Mom's Industrial Strength Iced Tea

• 8-10 tea bags of black tea
• 1 cup sugar (or 3 cups if you live in Alabama)
• 1/2 normal can frozen lemonade concentrate (or one little can, if you can find them. I can't.)
• one gallon plastic container. Mom reuses old gallon milk jugs.

Fill a small pot with a few cups of water, and bring to a boil. Take the boiling water off the heat and steep the tea bags into it for 5 minutes or so. Pour liquid into the gallon container. Squeeze the tea bags to get more liquid out and pour that into the container. Discard the tea bags. Add the sugar and the lemonade concentrate. Fill the rest of the container up with water, cap and shake vigorously to mix. Place in fridge until chilled.

The whole process can be done in about 15-20 minutes while you're working on something else in the kitchen. Though relatively convenient and stress-free, I find the stovetop method works best if you only make tea occasionally. It can get tedious at times. If you make a lot of tea like I do, or you find that you're making tea constantly, then an automatic iced tea maker may be right for you. For instance, I average making a gallon of tea every week throughout the year, Winter or Summer. I own two identical iced tea makers, and the amount I make in a year actually justifies the purchase. I bought them on clearance for less than $20 each, and I easily recovered the investment in about a month or two of tea making. If you want a maker, I suggest waiting for them to go on sale, because they invariably do in the Fall when most non-Dave people stop thinking about iced tea.

Automatic iced tea makers are basically glorified coffee makers. I bet that you could use your actual coffee maker in the same capacity if you wanted to, but iced tea makers come with nice pitchers to use. Here are some things I have learned in using them:

• It eliminates a lot of the tedious steps in the stovetop method, making an already fairly easy process even easier. You place the tea and sugar and whatever else in the basket, fill the maker with water, and press a button.
• One advantage is that sugar is placed in the basket and mixes with the tea at it is created, eliminating the need to mix it in later.
• Also, if you need your tea cold now, you can fill the pitcher with ice, which cools the tea down as it fills the pitcher. I usually don't bother, just filling the bottom half of the picture with water. I usually don't mind waiting for the tea to chill.
• The big disadvantage is that the tea comes out a little weaker- you'll have to burn an extra tea bag to maintain the same level of strength.
• Once the tea is done, the tea bags are still in the basket. You can squeeze out more liquid by using a potato masher and pressing the bags against the basket. You'll want to do this, as the remaining liquid is laden with tea flavored goodness.
• Having two iced tea makers means I can have 2 different iced tea flavors available at any time. I usually make one of those flavors a caffeine free one.

Although I've experimented with steeping fresh herbs or ginger when making iced tea in my dual makers, most of the time the basic recipe for each batch of tea is five tea bags and five teaspoons of sugar. I find that amount of sugar to be sufficient in taking the edge off of without making the tea too sweet. As for what kinds of tea, I usually use what I have on hand, but I've discovered that what makes a hot tea doesn't always work as a iced tea. Here's what I've learned:

• The reason not all hot teas work as iced teas is that in general, hot teas are sipped while iced teas are quaffed. This can be a useful guideline when evaluating iced tea flavors. For instance, I tend to avoid making iced teas using peppermint tea, because while sipping a hot peppermint drink may be refreshing before bedtime, chugging a pint of peppermint iced tea is a lot like drinking mouthwash.
• Regarding "classic" black tea flavors, English Breakfast seems to make the best "basic" iced tea flavor, though Earl Grey is pretty good, too.
• The best flavored teas to use for iced tea usually are the fruit infused teas, such as lemon, raspberry, blueberry, orange, and apple teas, though for many the fruit flavors in the teas aren't as strong as they would like. Mom relied on lemonade concentrate for her tea, but adding some fruit juice to the tea also works pretty well.
• You would think that teas designed for sweetening would make great iced tea candidates, but I was surprised to find that this wasn't always the case. Chai makes a good iced tea. Chocolate or vanilla teas typically do not. Maple tea, even vanilla maple tea, on the other hand, is excellent.
• Black teas seem on balance to make better iced teas than green or white teas. The stronger flavor holds up better to the chilling process.

In any case, I find that iced tea flavors are a good area to experiment in, because while the good results are always very good, the bad results are rarely worse than passable. That's certainly a better tradeoff than 90% of food or drink preparation. At least it is for me.