My Homemade sweet iced tea

Tea is a great, inexpensive beverage, and better for you than soda. Hot tea when the weather's cold is a soothing warm comfort, but when the weather's hot... time to switch to cold tea! I make tea a gallon at a time, and we go through it! I don't bother buying those bigger tea bags labelled for iced tea.. not sure why but they tend to cost more than the little individual bags (I buy store brand).. so I just use those.  I have two methods for making my sweet iced tea. One is using my coffee maker to brew the tea.

I put 16 individual tea bags in the pot, (making sure to have the tags hanging out for easier removal) and wait until the water is done brewing. I let it steep for 10-15 minutes, then I remove the bags and put 1 3/4 C sugar in the pot, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Then I pour the tea mixture into a gallon pitcher along with enough cold water to equal the gallon. The other method is using the microwave. I put 4 cups of water into a microwave safe cup (I use my glass measuring cup) and heat it until boiling (usually about 5 mins. in my microwave). Once the water is heated I take the cup out of the microwave, dissolve my sugar into it and then put in my tea bags. I let that steep about the same amount of time as the coffee maker method (or sometimes an hour... cause I forget what I'm doing- lol) Then I do the same as above, pour into a gallon pitcher with enough water to reach a gallon.. Sometimes I put the bags into the pitcher as well and let it steep over night,sometimes I put the sugar in the pitcher and then add the hot tea, and sometimes I'll use a sugar substitute like Splenda instead of sugar, just depends on my mood. How do you like to make your sweet tea?