[pdt816]

I'm almost too embarrassed to ask this but I am even more tired of cloudy iced tea.

I live in an area where we have well water (pretty high in minerals) and my iced tea immediately starts to turn cloudy. How do you stop this from happening or is it some other item that causes iced tea to turn cloudy other than the water?

Thanks in advance.

 

[anneke]

doesn't lemon clear it right up? that always works for me...

 

[pdt816]

Thanks, I'll try it next time.

 

[kimmie]

Thought of using bottled water? That is, if the lemons don't work...

 

[pdt816]

I have. Just thought I would check with the experts before I went through the trouble of making the tea and the ice from bottled water.

I have a bad habit of excluding the simple solution.

 

[kimmie]

Alright! I wasn't discounting the lemons, so you might want to try that first!

 

[lynne]

I see that you're in OK -- we have the same problem down here. Our water is basically naturally filtered through the acquifer (limestone) so lots of minerals - you sound like you have a similar problem. Used filtered or bottled water (which still comes from the area so problem remains unless you want to start brewing with Evian..), hot-brewed v sun-tea...it always seems cloudy. (And this is after years of making it all over the world!)

THe cold brew tea bags work well for us. They don't cloud and we don't get the "Texas oil slick!"

Good Luck!

 

[katherine]

I always use bottled water for tea, but I've found that some teas always cloud up on cooling. I have an Indian tea that does (add milk ), but it seems green teas never do. If the lemon thing doesn't work, try changing brands.

 

[campchef]

There are three main reasons for cloudy tea, hard water, poor quality tea and dirty equipment. Since I'm sure the equipment is not your problem, it's the water or the tea. We switched brands here to China Mist. They checked our water quality, added a filter and softner, and our tea is absolutely beautiful. And it tastes great, too. Check to see if you can filter and/or soften your water supply, and possibly upgrade your tea. Good Luck

 

[pdt816]

Looks like I will be using bottled water from now on. Thanks for everyone's responses.

 

[marzoli]

Just a thought on the iced tea issue:
My grandmother told me that to avoid the cloudiness you should always add the hot tea to cool water. Oddly enough, even though we have hard water this works for me. I steep the tea until it is nice and dark, and then add the hot tea to cool water already in the pitcher. The hardest part for me was learning to put the right amount of the two different temps of water together to produce a strong enough tea. I add ice cubes to the pitcher if it is too strong, but adding cool water causes cloudiness. And I've even stored the left-over tea in the fridge and used it later with no cloud.
Who knows why it works--it just works--maybe my grandmother knew some stuff. She was pretty cool.

 

[garlicginger]

On making ice tea in general:
I used to swear by sun tea - brewed just right and didn't get the tannins, so no astringent taste. Wanted some ice tea one day when it was raining and didn't want to wait until boiling water-made tea had cooled down. Now I use water from the tap, as hot as it can come out. Fill my pitcher to within two inches of the top, add enough tea to make the whole pitcher. Brew for 20 minutes, just sitting on the counter. Remove tea. Add ice cubes to fill pitcher. Stir until ice has melted. Ice tea - ready to go - never cloudy!

 

[chelsea cameron]

I am an ice tea connoisseur. I don't like cloudy ice tea because it affects the flavor. I usually make my daily pitcher of ice tea in the mornings.

Here is what I have learned:

1. (as Camp Chef stated), it is equipment, tea, or water.

Equipment - Keep it simple and clean using vinegar to wash it.

Tea - the best ice tea I have ever made is Ralph's store brand decaf in the pitcher size-bags. Decaf tea is less acidic than caffeine tea. But if I want some caffeine,

I make it in a smaller amount in a separate cup and mix it individually with each glass of the decaf instead of having the whole pitcher as caffeine.

Water - I live with very hard water as well, so I use a water filter

And using bottled water is still no guarantee of the water quality plus the plastic bottles and the earth...well.

2. Place your tea bags into a glass or ceramic tea pot as metal and plastics may adversely affect clarity and flavor.

3. Heat water in stove-top kettle. Do not let it hard boil, but only to the beginning of the kettle "whistle" when the air bubbles are just beginning to rise up.

4. Pour hot water directly over tea bags in the glass or ceramic teapot but only half-way filled.

5. Use the strings or a spoon to swoosh, repeatedly dip, or swirl bags for full saturation and steeping.

6. Place the lid on and leave to steep for at least one hour, at which time you may remove the tea bags - especially if you use caffeine bags.

7. Use your filtered, room-temperature water to fill teapot the rest of the way - NEVER put ice into the teapot.

8. Fill your glass (not plastic or metal) drinking glass with ice, put in any desired sweeteners on top of the ice, and slowly pour the still-warm, or room-temperature tea over the ice and sweetener.

This will allow some melting of the sweetener and the ice together, as well as not-too-quickly chilling the tea which could make it cloudy.

I hope you enjoy!

 

[phaedrus]

Thirteen year old thread back from the dead!  That might be a record.

 

[markrmoore2]

I didnt know forums and even existed back then

 

[nicko]

Back from the dead to post a link to a water filter. Painful