Mixed Drink Monday: Perfect & Easy Sweet Sun Tea

This past weekend was pretty busy, TOO busy to even try a new drink recipe.  I KNOW.  The horrors.  My sisters and I held a garage sale on Thursday and Friday and then Friday night was our church festival including a beer tent.  Suffice it to say, I did not feel like drinking on Saturday night.

It's a good thing I've made the extreme sacrifice the past few weeks of figuring out the perfect recipe for sweet sun tea.  This mostly involved messing with the amount of sugar because too much made me jittery while too little made it tasteless.  I threw a batch out in the sun when I ran home to put on shorts during the garage sale on Thursday.  It took about 2 minutes and now I have enough to last me another week.  Having an easy, go-to sun tea recipe is something everyone needs (I think).  It takes very little effort, very few ingredients, and the sun does most of the work!

Perfect & Easy Sweet Sun Tea
What you need:
-A large glass jar (mine is an old pickle jar very thoroughly cleaned with baking soda, hot water, and dish soap)
-a warm and sunny day (at least 70° I'd say)

Ingredients:
~16 cups of water, divided
-either 2 family sized tea bags or 10ish regular sized ones
-3/4 cup sugar

Directions:
1) Start with a large, clean jar (you don't want tea tasting like pickles!).  Add 12 cups of water and the sugar.  Stir until the sugar is dissolved.  Add the tea bags and seal the lid.  Place in a consistently sunny spot (or keep an eye on it and move as needed) for at least 6 hours.  I've had mine out for up to 9.
2) When you've decided your tea is done, discard the tea bags and add another 4ish cups of cold water, as your jar allows.  Refrigerate until cool.

In my opinion, a glass of sweet tea is best enjoyed during nap time on the porch with a good book.  That's basically how I start every nap time every day.   It's one of my favorite simple pleasures in life: good drink, good book, quiet house.  Something about taking the time for a glass of sweet tea, pretty much every day, just seems so summery and the perfect way to relax.  Try it.

Note: for another variation, you can make fruit flavored sweet tea like here.  I do that sometimes too but without fruit is cheaper so that's how I make it most often.  

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In the summer I aim to make a new drink every week and share them all here, good or bad!  See them all in chronological order by following the "Mixed Drink Monday" tag here or check out my favorites by scrolling down to "Mixed Drink Monday" on my recipes page!