Who remembers Sun Tea?

The power of the sun

I’ve been making a lot of iced tea lately, using a brand-name green tea, “infused with Orange, Jasmine, and Lavender.”  While this sounds more like shampoo, it makes a really good iced tea.  I boil ten bags of it in four cups of water for about 15 minutes.  Then I pour it into a large pitcher and add cold water until the pitcher is full.  But all this thinking about tea has me remembering Sun Tea. 

I didn’t grow up in a tea-drinking family.  My parents guzzled coffee instead.  But many residents in my neighborhood left these jars of Sun Tea out on their front porches in summer.  These jars, clearly made for making Sun Tea, fascinated me.  What is Sun Tea?  How does the magic power of the sun contribute to the tea-making process?  Okay, I have long since figured it out.  But I haven’t seen those jars in a really long time, and I am just wondering where they went.  Was Sun Tea a fad?  Did Sun Tea jars go the way of the pet rock?  Or is Sun Tea’s existence more like that of the Chia Pet…just when you think it’s gone for good, a commercial comes on asking you to purchase the new Chia Garfield?

Maybe the deep panic about Sun Tea harboring bacteria has something to do with its demise.  I don’t know.  The ol’ boil method works fine for me, anyway.