June 10 is National Iced Tea Day

Our air conditioner is dying a slow and painful death.  The company can not replace it until Tuesday, June 16.  Meanwhile, we are going old school

• fans
• iced tea

It does make me wonder how people managed in the days before electricity when they also wore a lot more clothes than we do today.

From National Today.Com  Tea has been around forever, but iced tea didn’t burst onto the scene and win over America’s hearts and minds until 1904. In that year, visitors to the St. Louis World’s Fair were greeted by exceedingly hot weather. Tea plantation owner and merchant Richard Blechynden, who was present at the fair, took advantage of the situation by selling chilled tea drinks (instead of hot tea) as a cold refreshment. The rest is history. On June 10, we fill our glasses with iced tea (sweetened or unsweetened—that’s your call) and celebrate National Iced Tea Day.

On hot days, one of my favorite things to make is sun tea.

According to  Simple Recipes

Put 4 to 8 tea bags into a clean 2 quart or gallon glass container (4 teabags for a 2 quart container, 8 tea bags for a gallon container). Fill with water and cap. Place outside where the sunlight can strike the container for about 3 to 5 hours. Move the container if necessary to keep it in the sun. When the tea has reached its desired strength, remove from sun and put it in the refrigerator. You may or may not want to remove the tea bags at this point. I usually don’t.

I’ve found that the tea can brew in the shade if the temperature is warm enough. Although I like to make Tazo’s Green Ginger Tea, any type of tea bags will work.