Americans are best at iced tea, but anyone can try it at home. It's really great in hot and humid weather. As with everything to do with tea, experiment with blend and flavours to find the ones you like the best.

Method

Here are some tips on making iced tea or use the recipe idea below:

Start with a good (not great) tea - Assam, Ceylon and China black teas are ideal
Brew a double strength concentrate at first. Use 25g of whole leaf tea for each 1000ml of water just off the boil. Let steep for 5 minutes, then strain out the tea leaves
Dilute the concentrate with an equal amount of room-temperature water or more to taste. Avoiding the quick change from hot to cold also seems to prevent clouding
Pour over ice and enjoy. Cover and refrigerate any remaining tea, but in any event, discard after 24 hours
If sweetening the tea, add the sugar when the tea is very hot and before dilution

We've also put together some ideas for you below.

Recipe for 6

For the iced tea:
2tbsp organic black tea - either organic Assam or Chinese Black tea
2tbsp organic muscovado sugar, or other brown sugar
1250ml freshly drawn water
275ml organic orange juice (ideally freshly squeezed)
Juice of ½ lime
For the garnish (optional):
½ sliced orange
½ sliced lemon
6 sprigs of fresh mint

Add sugar to pan, then add water and bring to the boil. Add the organic tea leaves, stir and brew for 15 minutes into a very strong organic black tea.
Strain the organic tea and leave to get absolutely cold. When the organic tea is cold, put loads of ice into a glass jug and pour over the cold organic tea followed by the orange and lime juices.
Give a good stir and add the fresh mint, orange and lemon slices, stir thoroughly, and serve in long glasses with ice.