For about five years during my childhood, both of my grandmothers lived with my family at the same time. They were very different women who didn’t get along very well. My mother’s mother had a college education—which was unheard of for women in the early 1900s—and became the first female dietician for the Georgia school system. My father’s mother, Granny Lupo, was a very simple country woman who never had a job. They came from different worlds and had to share a bathroom, which made for some very interesting times.

Granny Lupo didn’t have a college education, but she knew her mint. She grew a patch of spearmint in our backyard and made sweet mint tea in the summer. When Steve and I bought the farm, I knew I wanted to have a mint patch for mint tea. I grow a lot of mint and sometimes it’s still not enough to make tea for all the people who ask if they can have some.

“Is it time, Marie?” the regulars at The Farmhouse ask me hopefully.“Is it mint tea season yet?” It’s that good. There aren’t a lot of things I say are perfect or “the best,” but my mint tea is perfect and it’s the best. And the key to making it perfect is forgetting everything you think you know about making iced tea.

Three things:

1. Get bed-raised mint. The stuff you buy in the store tastes dramatically different.
2. Get lots of it. More than you think you need.
3. Pour hot water over the sugar—a regular amount of sugar, people; we’re not making candy here—and the mint. The hot water literally cooks the mint. A lot of people think you can add mint at the end, but it doesn’t get the job done

I crave it. There’s a half-gallon in my fridge right now. My best friend craves it so much that, when she flies in from Maryland for meetings in Atlanta, she calls and says, “Where’s the tea?” And if she doesn’t have enough time to get to Serenbe, I’ll meet her at the airport with a big batch and we’ll just sit in my car and drink it until she has to get on the plane.

Mint Tea

2 quarts water

1/3 cup sugar

8 black tea bags (preferably Lipton)

4 cups fresh mint

Bring water to a boil. Stir in sugar until dissolved.

In a half gallon pitcher or container, place mint and tea bags and pour hot water over this.

Let cool to room temperature. Strain the liquid by squeezing the liquid from the tea bags to achieve maximum flavor.

Add more water, if needed, to make a full half gallon.