Tea Concentrate

Making Tea Concentrate in advance will help you produce 1 quart of either iced or hot tea very quickly. This could be handy if your guests drink a lot more tea than you had planned, and you want to offer more without taking time away from the food and conversation. Using Tea Concentrate is also the usual method for making tea in the Russian tea tradition.

To make Tea Concentrate, bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add 6 tea bags and boil for 4 minutes, a few minutes longer for a very strong concentrate. Remove from the heat, discard the tea bags and let the concentrate come to room temperature. Pour into a 1-quart container and refrigerate.

To make 1 quart of hot or iced tea from concentrate, add 3 cups of water to 1 cup of concentrate. Use boiling water from a kettle for hot tea and cold water with ice for iced tea. This recipe can make 16 cups of tea if necessary.