rule 0 - dissolve sugar when hot
The sugar must be dissolved, brought into solution, when the tea is hot. A hot solution will accept more sugar than you would ever want to add. Sweet tea cannot be made by dissolving sugar into cold unsweetened tea! The ice cubes will melt before the sugar dissolves.

rule 1 - tea must be boiled
If tea is made without sufficient boiling, bad boys from the tea bag are transferred to the tea solution. In little more than a day, unrefrigerated Sun tea (made with only sunlight) will become nasty and undrinkable. Forgetting rule number 0, tea must be boiled so that it will be safe over the time you need to consume it. In addition, the lowest material cost is obtained by boiling because it extracts more tea than the one-pass drip or room temperature methods.

rule 2 - tea strengthens with time
For whatever reason, as sweet tea ages it gets stronger. During preparation the sweet tea is diluted so that it tastes best after it has strengthened, not before. The next batch of tea should be made in advance of running out so that it has aged before the current supply is exhausted.

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