Making Green Tea

We make iced green tea by the half-gallon, and here's how we do it.

We start with a 16-oz steeping teapot from Amazon (link in the picture):

Then we throw in one heaping scoop each of green tea and dried stevia leaves.  Each heaping scoop is just over half of a 1/4 cup measure:

We get our loose tea and dried stevia leaves from San Francisco Herb Co.  Link here for tea, and link here for stevia .

We heat up some filtered water until it's boiling:

After the water has stopped boiling, we pout it over the tea and stevia, and set the timer for nine minutes:

Meanwhile, we add two or three inches of filtered water to a half-gallon pitcher.  When the timer goes off, we hold the teapot over the pitcher of water, and press up one side of the bottom, which lets the tea escape:

My husband makes his tea first and adds more filtered water until his pitcher is 3/4 full.  He also adds some ice.  Then he heats up more water, fills the teapot again, re-using the tea, and sets the timer for 13 minutes.  When the timer goes off, I prepare my tea in the same way, filling my pitcher about 2/3 full.  We leave our pitchers out on the counter until the tea has cooled a bit before storing in the refrigerator.

Different types of tea turn out with different colors.  It took us a while to figure out how we like it.  My husband likes his tea strong and sweet, while I like mine weaker and not as sweet.

Do you make more than one cup of green tea at a time?