I make tea syrups ahead of time and keep them on hand. Tea syrups are super easy to make!!
I use glass mason jars and typically make 4 tea syrups at a time, which last us about 2-3 days. Here are the super easy steps to follow to make tea syrups!
Step One: Bring water to a boil. You want to boil enough water to dill as many jars as you are using. Typically I have 3-4 glass mason jars that I am making at once. If I am hosting a party or anything I typically make about 8.
Step Two: Place tea bags in each mason jar. I have a two quart pitcher that we always have full of tea. For a 2 quart pitcher I use 3 tea bags. When I make a gallon pitcher I use 7 tea bags. The amount of tea bags can be adjusted depending on the strength of tea you like.
Step Three: Fill each jar with water once the water comes to a boil
Step Four: Allow the mixture to cool to room temp before placing the lid on the jar. This will prevent the jar from sealing. Once cool store in the fridge. The tea syrups are good for about 5 days.
To Make Tea From Tea Syrups:
Once the tea syrups are made it is super easy to make iced tea. I dump the tea syrup into a pitcher and then fill the pitcher with water! Make sure you strain out the tea bags! This comes as a huge time saver for us. We go through quite a bit of iced tea, especially if guests are over and we do not have to wait for water to boil in between.
***To make sweat tea just add your sugar to the boiling water in step one. If I am making tea syrups for two quart pitchers I use 1/2 cup of sugar per syrup and 1 cup for gallon pitchers.***
I stock up on our favorite teas when they are on sale. The last time Celestial Seasonings Tea had coupons out for $1.00 off per box I bought 40 boxes of tea. ( I bought 40 $1.00/1 coupons on ebay for $0.99) At that time Target also had the tea on sale for $1.49 per box.
After coupons I paid about $0.03 per tea bag ( $0.49 per box!) so a pitcher of tea at my house is costing about $0.09 for 2 quart pitcher or $0.21 per gallon pitcher! So approximately $0.72 per week!
A 20 oz bottle of soda is well over a dollar and a two liter is at least $1.50. We save a ton of money by skipping the soda, plus we are not drinking any artificial sweeteners!!!
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Love this! We drink a lot of tea in our house too and it never fails that we run out right before dinner…:/ This will totally eliminate that! I was wondering though…is there a reason that you wouldn't want the jars to seal? Seems like they might keep longer if they did…or would the sealing be bad? (Legitimately asking here, not trying to be a busy body know-it-all…lol)
We personally go through them so fast that I hate having them seal and having to pry them off/ damage the lids. Lids are not reccommended to be re-sealed. I have certain lids for the mason jars that I use over and over again that are not sealed. I store all of my dry pantry staples ( like beans) in glass mason jars this way too. Sealing of the jars would not be bad, but they will not stay sealed do to the non acid content so I would not consider them shelf stable for a long period of time and would still store them in the fridge!! I personally would still use them up with in a week.
Why have I never thought of this? What a genius idea!! Thanks for sharing.
BTW – I found you from the Weekend Potluck at 4LittleFergusons!
Good idea, thanks for sharing!