As we all know, us older folks, anyway the saying, “Ain’t no cure for the summer time blues” comes from lyrics from the song, Summertime Blues. It was written in the late 1950s by Eddie Cochran and his manager Jerry Capehart. It made the Billboard Top 100 in 1958 as number 8 on the charts. (Wikipedia). Xomba is using this phrase from the popular song lyric for its summer writing contest entitled, “What’s Your Cure For the Summertime Blues Contest.” And I bet you thought Xomba administrators thought up this year’s summer contest theme all by themselves, hardly.

Ice tea can beat the summer time blues. Images used by permission from www.istockphoto.com/Aleaimage

Anyway, my cure for 110° Arizona summer time blues, is Arizona Sun Tea, that and swimming, and lounging by one of our many outdoor public pools. I also enjoy, of course, going up to Northern Arizona for a Fourth of July fireworks show in order to get out of the summer heat. Payson, AZ has a great fireworks show at a city park overlooking the manmade lake that is if they don’t have to cancel it because of the fire danger. It draws lots of tourist every year from the Phoenix Valley. People either stay in campgrounds or in one of the many hotels, and you don’t have to stay in the fancy Christopher Creek Cabins, either. Payson has budget hotels near the Indian casino. But wait I’m unemployed; I can’t afford even budget hotels this year; I’m so very, very, very blue. Well, I guess I’ll just drink some of my Arizona Sun Tea in order to beat those “Summer Time Blues.”

Arizona Sun Tea is very simple to make, hardly takes a recipe just the sun as your solar cooker, and no, you don’t need one of those fancy solar ovens either.

The first thing you will need to make this tea is a giant glass bottle with a lid. Preferably one of those sun tea bottles, you know with a plastic lid with a handle, and a spout to dispense the tea. Well, if you live in say one of those cold climates, and can’t find a sun tea jar at the grocery store, any old giant glass bottle with a lid will do. The next thing you will need besides the sun of course is a giant family size black tea bag. Good old-fashioned black tea will only do for Arizona Sun Tea., please not green tea, or gasp, chamomile tea either. I prefer Luzuianne, or Lipton giant family size black tea bags.

Okay, next you fill the jar with water. Arizona tap water, yucky! I use bottled purified water, but you can use filtered water, or if you prefer tap water. Then you place the tea bag in the water. I like to put the string under the lid so you don’t have to go fishing in the water to pull it out later. Then you place it in the hot Arizona sun for an Arizona afternoon, and collect it in at night. If you don’t have an Arizona Sun, I suppose a Minnesota sun will do, but be sure you leave it out long enough to steep thoroughly. And don’t over leave it out there. The tea bag can get moldy if you leave it in there too long. But maybe that’s what makes Arizona Sun Tea taste so special, the fermentation. Just kidding! It’s the slow, and steady steeping rate. But if you forget and leave the glass jar out overnight, well, the stray cats will pee on it. I’ve learned by experience.

Beware of that stray cat hiding in your backyard bushes. He might pee on your Arizona Sun Tea jar. Image used by permission from www.istockphoto.com/Starush.

Anyway, you take the jar out of the sun when the sun goes down, and place the entire bottle in your refrigerator to cool down overnight. Be sure to take the tea bag out of the water, and throw it away. And be careful lifting the giant bottle filled with water. It’s heavy. Support the glass jar, even if you pick it up by the lid’s handle.

You can dispense the tea the next day using the spout, or pour it into a glass if you don’t have a spout. Like regular ice tea, serve it with ice, and a lemon slice, and sugar, or a sugar substitute like. Mmmm, good, cool, and refreshing!

A refreshing glass of Arizona Sun Tea served with fresh lemon. Image used by permission from www.istockphoto.com/Jobetf

Now a note about the lemon. Lemons grow in Arizona. They used to be part of Arizona’s five C’s, Climate, Citrus, Cotton, and Cats. Lots of stray cats. Just kidding, it’s actually Copper. And while we may still have the Climate, code for Tourism, and the Copper, even though the copper mines have laid off workers recently, we really don’t have much of the citrus, and cotton as an industry anymore. Those orchards, and cotton fields have been replaced by housing, and we all know how that’s faring now, don’t we?

Lemon trees are still used as landscaping in Arizona. Image used by permission from www.istockphoto.com/Gloadventures.

But our neighbors still have citrus trees in our yard even our church has lemon trees for landscaping. So we use fresh lemon from our church’s trees for our Arizona Sun Tea.

Fresh lemons right off the tree are the best for Arizona Sun Tea. Image used by permission from www.istockphoto.com/Attator.

Well, if your neighbor doesn’t grow the lemons, and you can’t get fresh lemons at your neighborhood market, you can always use that canned lemon juice from your grocery shelves. The lemon juice that we don’t drink from our church’s trees, we freeze into lemon cubes, for our tea, and lemon cookies all year long. And don’t worry we don’t steal the lemons off the tree. The church custodian picks them and leaves them for the parishioners in a box by the door.

And so you have the recipe for Arizona Sun Tea. If you don’t live in Arizona, you may just call it plain old Sun Tea if you like. I think you will find it a refreshing cure for those summertime blues!

For more ice tea recipes see
http://www.xomba.com/iced_coffee_and_ice_tea_recipes