@ Rich. I can see this convo has gone a bit off-topic to your first
question by nice people trying to help out. Let's stay on your first
question. Most of the better to best quality varieties of camelia
senensis globally share one unique feature - they "cloud" in the
liquor. Senior tea professionals will acknowledge this fact in a
heartbeat, if you can find any who meet the criteria of being a
seasoned veteran with a minimum of 25 years in the trade of which at
least 5 were spent at origin managing tea estate(s) or who have had
interests a tea selling brokerage in the growing origins with weekly
tea auctions (the Mombasa & Colombo auctions essentially "make" the
weekly world tea export market).

That spoken, the invention of "clear-liquoring" iced tea made from raw
tea leaves is 100% a marketing tactic that plays on people's psychology
that "clear" means "good" - a wrong fundamental assumption in tea. If
you are comfortable getting past this marketing tactic and happy to
drink cloudy iced tea like most tea professionals do (but won't
acknowledge publically), I recommend you buy your great teas directly
from the tea estates that make the best. Directly means directly, not
thru small American or European houses like Uptons etal who are getting
their raw product fifth or sixth hand. Go to http://www.dilmahtea.com
and study their "t-series" and "watte" original garden lines. Take a
selection that suits you best from the descriptions, pay in the normal
online fashion on their secure servers & your tea will arrive at your
home by DHL or FedEx within an equal or even shorter time period of
time than if you buy it here online from an American online provider.


When brewing black tea, whether for drinking hot or for icing down to
drink as iced tea, there are no shortcuts to getting the maximum
brilliant liquor that any top quality tea has to offer naturally. Bring
TAP water (not bottled) to a roiling boil, pour it on your tea leaves,
leave steep for 5 minutes, decant the liquor from the leaves and
enjoy. It's as simple as that. So far as tea paraphernalia, this too is
frequently marketing nonsense. A teaspoon was thus named because it is
an excellent approximation of a perfect weight of tea to make a single
cup. For more leafy varieties, making it a heaping teaspoon. For
smaller leaf denser tea grades (grade means size in tea and has nothing
to do with quality), use no LESS than a proper teaspoon fill.

Hope this may assist.

-jd

On Oct 12, 11:39 pm, "Rich" > wrote:
> Which black tea makes the best iced tea? I've read that the big tea
> companies (Lipton, etc.) select teas that stay clear rather than turning
> cloudy when iced, when they sell teas labeled "for iced tea." What teas
> might those be?
>
> I don't like flowery scented teas. And by iced tea, I don't mean southern
> "sway tea." I like good old yankee unsweetened iced tea. I'm looking for a
> good flavored loose black tea that will produce the very best clear, strong,
> iced tea. Any ideas?
>
> Thanks,
>
> --Rich