I have had my Mr. Coffee Iced Tea Maker (MCITM) for about 9 or 10 years and it makes perfect iced tea every time. Someone emailed me today and asked for my recipe so here it is for all. Remember, I have a 9/10 year old MCITM, so this may not apply to the new ones if the size of the pitcher has changed. My MCITM makes 4 quarts.
Steps:
- fill the MCITM with water
- put about 1 quart (give or take) of HOT water in the pitcher.
- add your sugar to the pitcher and stir til dissolved. I used to make really sweet tea with 1 cup of sugar, but I have cut back to about 2/3 cup of sugar. Sweeten to taste.
- put 4 regular sized tea bags in the top of the MCITM – I use cheapo/no-name/generic orange pekoe bags and it turns out fine
- put the pitcher in place, turn it on, and start brewing
- when done brewing, dump the open the valve and let the extra tea into the pitcher. Do NOT squeeze the tea bags to get the extra tea out (that tip from Alton Brown).
- add cold water or ice to fill the pitcher
- ENJOY!
[tags]geek, tea, iced tea, sweet tea, recipe, recipes, sugar[/tags]
I have this at home and it does not work!
I’m very disapointed in the MCITM!!
This method is actually preferred for me because I like to sweeten my tea with honey. Honey can only be dissolved in hot water. Trying to put honey over the ice like you normally could do with sugar is a horible idea, you get a wonderfull honey glob in the bottom of your pitcher, resulting in the first glass being unsweetened, and the last glass becoming a honey death machine! I have heard you can put sugar/honey in the brewing basket, but im not quite brave enough to potentially gum up the works if that idea turns out to be false, besides cleaning honey out of the pitcher is about 1000 times easier than trying to scoop honey out of the resvoir if it finds a way in there, and my luck, it probably would, and ruin the machine, giving me an awsome MCITM paperweight.
Cheers!
How much ice/cold water do you use?