To stay awake between noon and three o'clock, I need a hefty jolt of
caffeine. By good luck, I never became habituated to caffeine, so a
pint of cold tea will do the job.


The summer before last, I put tiles band-sawed from a brick of tea
into a glass saucepan, filled the pan with water, and brought it to a
boil. When it was boiling, I'd put in some lemon grass and a sprig of
cinnamon basil (or whatever I found in the garden that I thought would
ameliorate the taste of boiled tea), put the lid on, and allow it to
cool. Then I'd strain the tea into a pitcher, refill the pan, boil
the leaves again, strain this batch into the pitcher, and throw out
the leaves.

I would divide this strong tea into bottles, freeze them, and just
before an all-day ride I would fill the head space of a bottle with
fruit juice and put the bottle into my cooler, to be put into the
front bottle cage at noon. It would be about half frozen at this
stage, and thaw quickly in the summer heat.

Come fall, it came time to make tea and I realized that the tea
wouldn't thaw fast enough now that the heat was bearable. The dime
dropped, and I put two heaping teaspoons of loose tea into a bottle,
filled it, put it into the back bottle cage, and left it at garage
temperature all night. (Some folks call cold-brewed tea "sun tea",
but the sun is strictly optional; it brews just fine in a dark
refrigerator, but takes a few hours longer than it does at ambient on
a hot day.)




Last summer I brewed my tea one bottle at a time. I'd put tea into a
stainless saucepan, fill a bottle, empty the bottle into the saucepan,
set it over the lowest-possible heat, when it came to a boil maybe an
hour later, I'd turn off the heat, put on the lid, allow it to cool,
then chill it until time to strain it into a bottle. I might freeze
as much juice as I thought would replace what had boiled away and what
had soaked into the leaves, or I might empty the saucepan into the
bottle and then fill the bottle with juice. Or I might freeze a
little tea in a disposable bottle, fill it up from the saucepan, and
freeze any left-overs for next time.

I really, really wish that Marsh hadn't stopped selling Smith Brothers
Caffeine drops.


--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.