Sun tea jars and sun tea recipes

It's coming up that time of year: time to get out the sun tea jar.  For the last few years, our problem has been where to find them.  Like the yellow pollen off the pine trees in Atlanta this time of year, there seem to be a few weeks where they're all over town, but outside of that brief period, you can't find them.

Last September we broke one of glass sun tea jars, and after searching around town in vain, we spent two hours searching before finally buying two of them from Kitchen Etc. After all that, they ended up being plastic jugs.  We bought two, and we've managed to melt one in the dishwasher.  (Yeah, yeah, you're not supposed to put them in the dishwasher.)

Last week we found some very ugly glass jars in our local Kroger, and we bought them.  For future reference, they claim to be Golden Harvest Beverage Tapper Containers, made by Hearthmark, Inc, of Muncie Indiana.

Here's our sun tea recipe:
1 gallon cold water in sun tea jar
9 standard sized bags Lipton tea (the ordinary bags)
3 standard sized bags Lipton orange-and-spice tea bags.
Put bags in jar, cover jar with lid, and put in the sun for 5-6 hours. 

This makes tea that may be a bit strong for some; the normal recommendation is 9 normal-sized tea bags brewed for 3-4 hours.

Fair warning: I like this tea pretty well, but I made some for an office Thanksgiving party, and the VP in charge of my group was heard to say that he hated it.  I was laid off 5 weeks later.  Coincidence?

We also like 'American' ice tea bags from Stash Tea, but they're pretty pricey at $4.25 for two gallon bags.  (I guess that's no worse than Coke.)