When you want a refreshing drink on a hot day make either lemonade or iced tea. This iced tea recipe, Ray's own, is attested to by multiple construction workers as the only way they could keep working on very hot days in the sun. Hey, it is simple and very good. Exceptionally refreshing. Try it.

Makes one gallon

Ingredients:

13 Lipton® 100% natural tea bags

2 cups of sugar

2 1/2 quarts of ice cubes

1 3/4 quarts of water

lemon slices (optional)

Directions:

Put 2 cups of sugar into a one gallon plastic or tempered glass pitcher.

Put the tea bags on a counter and pull off the stapled tabs from the ends of the strings.

Align the strings and bags for six of the tea bags and tie the ends of the six strings together.

Repeat that process for the remaining seven tea bags and then tie the ends of the two groups together.

Put the tied tea bag groups into a one quart Pyrex® measuring cup and fill it 2/3 full with water.

Bring the mixture to a boil in a microwave oven on full power, about four or five minutes, and let it boil for 30 seconds. Then shut off the microwave oven.

Put the ice into the one gallon plastic or tempered glass pitcher, and then lift the tied tea bags from the Pyrex® cup with a fork, holding them over the ice cubes, allowing them to drip over the ice.

Dispense the hot tea from the Pyrex® cup over the ice cubes.

Return the tied tea bag groups to the measuring cup and fill it 2/3 full of water.

Mix the pitcher contents well with a long wooden spoon.

Repeat the earlier boiling process in the microwave oven and then repeat the dripping and dispensing steps described above.

Now wrap the tied tea bag groups around a soup spoon and squeeze them over the pitcher to get the last of the liquid tea from the bags.

Mix the pitcher contents well and add any required additional water to bring the total volume to one gallon.

Keep the iced tea covered and chilled in the refrigerator for up to one hour until it is served.

Serve the iced tea in tall glasses with or without ice cubes and with or without a slice of lemon.

Expect compliments. This tasty iced tea will really quench your thirst as well as provide energy.