Quick tip – Batching up some ice tea in the office:
When I’m in my office I drink a lot of tea. In the spring and summer, especially after a hot workout I don’t really like too much hot tea. I like it iced or at least refrigerated.
My office has a supply of tea bags and a water dispenser. The water dispenser is one of those things with the big 5 gallon bottle upended in it. It dispenses hot and cold water.
In the morning, on my way to work I’ll typically stop for a cup of coffee. This leaves me with several empty 16 oz to-go coffee cups with lids in my office.
What I do is toss a tea bag in them and fill them up with hot water from the spring water dispenser. Then I put the lids back on and put the tea-in-process in the office fridge. This way I have iced tea ready for me in a handy travel container at some later date.
A couple points to note are first that my spring water dispenser in the office only holds enough hot water to make two of these. After that the water gets tepid. The optimal batch size for the ice-tea making operation is therefore 2 cups.
Another point is that these cups tend to come with that cardboard band to keep them from burning your hand. This is an excellent place to tuck the tea bag tag and it secures it neatly.
This is a free and easy way to keep myself in iced tea in the summer as I’m working. You can reuse the cups several times before they start to come apart.