Nothing quenches thirst like a glass of iced tea filled with ice cubes and lemon wedges. And if you make your own, you’ll pay a few cents per glass rather than $3 for a bottle of pre-made iced tea. It’s as simple as making regular tea, filling a glass with ice cubes, and pouring in the tea. Or you can let the sun do the work and make sun tea—just put a few tea bags into a pitcher of water and let it sit in the hot sun for an hour or two to brew your tea nature’s way. (You might want to cover the top of the pitcher with cheesecloth or plastic wrap to prevent any debris from falling in.)

Aside from the fact that DIY iced tea is simple and inexpensive to make, it’s also endlessly versatile. To customize your tea, add a few spices or herbs to whatever tea you like best (black, green, white, red, or herbal). Home goods stores usually stock tea filters, which are empty tea bags that you can fill with whatever you like and tie shut with a cotton string. Or you can brew your tea in closeable and reusable drawstring muslin bags.

A few ideas for you to try adding to your DIY iced tea blends:

• Spices like cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, cardamom pods, and pieces of ginger root are delicious with black and red teas.
• Herbs like mint, basil, lemon verbena, and lemon balm are perfect partners for green tea.
• Floral herbs like lavender and chamomile are good choices to pair with white tea.
• You can make your own herbal teas by creating your own blend of herbs (and spices). Not only is it fun to experiment with new ideas, herbal teas are caffeine-free. (Technically, “tea” has to contain leaves from the tea plant, which means that herbal “teas” and red “teas” aren’t actually teas.)
• If you’d like to add a fruit flavor to your tea, include dried fruit in your tea bag: mango + black tea, cherries + red tea, peaches + white tea, apples + green tea.
• Fresh citrus juices are wonderful in iced tea. Be sure to add the squeezed-out wedge to the glass, too—the zest will naturally sweeten the tea.
• If you’d like to get really fancy, add freshly toasted nuts to your blends. Toasted hazelnut combines beautifully with spicy black tea.

Note: You can naturally decaffeinate your tea by steeping a tea bag in hot water for at least 5 minutes, then discarding the water and re-steeping the tea in fresh water. Since caffeine is water-soluble, most of it will wash away with the initial batch of water.