I'm a southern man born and raised, and I run on sweet tea. Lately I've been experimenting with lowering the amount of sugar (or splenda) I make it with. What I've found is that I like the reduced sweetness, but tea bags are so low quality and bitter that I need the sugar to cover it up. Cold brewing and adding a pinch of baking soda help a lot, but I still want more. I think a higher quality tea is going to get me the flavor I'm looking for. So, any suggestions on any part of the process are welcome! What teas to try, brewing methods, etc. Less caffeine is better, I have a lot of heart failure in my family history so I try to minimize caffeine intake.
Get a loose leaf variety. Tea bags use lower quality tea. My grandmother made an iced earl grey and it was so good, I didn't need sugar. Just a lemon wedge and it was delicious.
To minimize bitterness with a fast brew as others have mentioned, try out CTC black tea, it's machined ("crush-tear-curl") tea that comes in a coarse powder/pellet form and extracts completely and quickly due to enormous surface area. You'll be sure to find it some an Indian grocery store. Brooke Bond Red Label, Lipton Yellow Label, and Wagh Bakri are the names I remember seeing, IIRC I've tried all of those and they're all about the same. Terrible sounding process name but give it a chance!
I'm not sure how you're doing it but using more teabags for less time in hot water will give you better flavor intensity without the more bitter tannins leeching out.
Try boiling your water, add an extra teabag from your normal amount, and then only steep the tea in it for like 3-4 minutes and see how you like that. I like both liptons or roses tea (just normal versions), neither of which are high quality but are widely available and cheap, with this method.
Loose leaf and cooler longer brewing. I'm just going through my first box of loose leaf and I'll never bother with tea bags again. Not only does it taste better but it's cheaper.
Is it really cheaper? I thought the bags were the cheapest it gets since they're so low quality, I was expecting to spend a good bit more on loose leaf.
It can be, the tin I have was $15 on Amazon for 16oz. I got it in September and still have half of it, I would have already used a couple boxes of bagged tea by now.
Baking soda?! I found alkaline water gave terrible results, do you add it after brewing?
Yes, after brewing. And literally just a pinch, 1/4 teaspoon at most. It's supposed to reduce cloudyness and slow the effect of getting more bitter with time. This was strongly recommended by a number of brewers, so I figure there's got to be some merit to it.
