Home grown Ice Tea....

 I love when I am able to use my own garden to make ice tea!!!  I grab the ice tea maker lid and fill it up with "goodies" from the garden.  I first start out with a little lavender.  Not a lot, because it tends to be strong.  If I don't add lavender then I add my lemon balm, but I tend to not add them to the same tea, I don't like when those flavors compete with each other.

I then head over and get some mint...love my mint!

my peppermint is not doing to well, so I don't add much of that....bummer!

 I go back and get more spearmint to add.  I fill up the lid and then I come inside and thoroughly wash it.  I don't add soap, but I make sure it gets cleaned of any
 dirt or bugs.

I then fill the tea pitcher up to the line that says water.  I plug in the tea machine.  I then pour that water into the top of the maker.  http://www.mrcoffee.com/  I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Mr. Coffee 2 qt. ice tea maker.

 I fill the tea pitcher up with ice, to the line that says ice.  I am a little short on ice, so I just add more water. *NOTE- I do not add sugar to my tea, but if I did, this would be the time I did.  So when the hot water drains down it helps "melt" the sugar.  I then line up the lid of the tea pitcher with the spout of the tea maker and hit the on button.

 The tea then filters into the pitcher.  It only takes about 2-3 minutes for this process.

 Once the tea is down brewing, I still let the water water sit in the lid for another 5 minutes or so to get more of the steeping done.

 I then push up this button and it lets the tea that was in the lid drain down to the rest of the tea.  I do not add sugar to my tea.  I then pour that tea into another pitcher and make another pot of tea.

 I am out of ice cubes, so I just add water to the pitcher. And I repeat the process.  I think it is just as good the second time.  I may let the tea leaves steep for a little longer, but I don't change anything else.

ANOTHER OPTION:

  You can also make tea make tea with a mixture of fresh leaves and Lipton Ice Tea  http://www.liptontea.com/      or any other tea bags.  I don't like the tea bag nearly as well, I like the light fresh taste of the just picked leaves.

Also, if you want a little flavor in your straight tea, you can buy syrups for them.  http://shop.torani.com/    I got this at Buelhers for $6.00.  http://www.buehlers.com/     I like this in the regular tea where I don't add sugar and it does not have the lavender or the lemon balm in it.