How much loose tea per gallon of iced tea? Use ½ cup of loose-leaf tea — about 8 tablespoons, or 24 teaspoons — per gallon of water. That same ½ cup also fills a 2-quart pitcher at ¼ cup, or a single 8 oz glass at 1½ teaspoons.
That ½ cup per gallon is what we use for blood orange hibiscus tea and the rest of the iced lineup — caffeine-free fruit blends included.
Making a big batch of iced tea and not sure how much loose leaf to use? The short answer: about ½ cup of loose tea per gallon of water. Below is the full ratio chart for every common pitcher size, plus how to adjust it for hot brewing, cold brewing, and your own taste.
The quick answer
The standard ratio is 1.5 teaspoons of loose leaf tea per 8 oz (1 cup) of water. Scale that up and you get:
- 1 quart (32 oz): ~2 tablespoons of loose tea
- Half gallon (64 oz): ~¼ cup of loose tea
- 1 gallon (128 oz): ~½ cup of loose tea
If you only measure in spoons, a gallon works out to roughly 24 teaspoons (8 tablespoons) of loose leaf.
Iced tea ratio by volume: quart, pitcher, half gallon, gallon
A gallon of iced tea takes ½ cup of loose leaf, or about 16 regular tea bags.
Here’s the same ratio worked out for every container you’re likely to fill, including the tea-bag equivalent if that’s what you have on hand (a standard tea bag brews about one 8 oz cup, so bags roughly track cups of water):
| Batch size | Loose leaf (spoons) | Loose leaf (volume) | ≈ Regular tea bags |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 glass (8 oz) | 1.5 tsp | — | 1 |
| 1 quart (32 oz) | 6 tsp (2 Tbsp) | ~⅛ cup | 4 |
| Standard 2-qt pitcher / half gallon (64 oz) | 12 tsp (4 Tbsp) | ~¼ cup | 8 |
| 1 gallon (128 oz) | 24 tsp (8 Tbsp) | ~½ cup | 16 |
| 2 gallons (crowd batch) | 48 tsp (16 Tbsp) | ~1 cup | 32 |
Fruit and herbal blends are bulkier by volume than fine black tea, so when in doubt, measure a little heaping — with a tisane you really can’t overdo it.
Why loose leaf uses a different amount than tea bags
A standard tea bag holds about 1.5–2 grams of finely cut tea. Loose leaf is usually larger, whole-leaf pieces that need a little more room to unfurl, which is why recipes call for it by the teaspoon rather than “one bag per cup.” Fruit and herbal blends with big dried pieces are lighter by volume, so a heaping measure is perfectly fine — you really can’t overdo it with a tisane.
Hot brew vs cold brew: same ratio, different time
Use the same ½ cup of loose tea per gallon for hot brew and for cold brew; only the time and temperature change.
- Hot brew, then ice: ½ cup of tea per gallon, ~208°F water, steep 5–7 minutes, strain, cool. (Tip: brew a strong concentrate in half the water, then top with cold water and ice so it doesn’t get watery.)
- Cold brew: ½ cup of tea per gallon of cold water, refrigerate 6–8 hours or overnight, then strain. Smoother and less bitter for big batches.
Adjusting to taste
Ratios are a starting point, not a rule:
- Too weak? Add more leaf next time before you add more steep time — long steeps add bitterness, more leaf adds flavor.
- Too strong? You brewed a concentrate — just dilute the glass with extra water or ice.
- Serving over lots of ice? Bump the tea up by about 25% so it isn’t watered down as the ice melts.
A gallon, made simple
For a fruit or herbal iced tea, ½ cup of loose leaf per gallon, steeped overnight in the fridge, is a reliable, crowd-pleasing batch. Our caffeine-free mango pineapple iced tea follows this exact ratio — an 8 oz pouch makes roughly 60 glasses, so a little goes a long way. Two more that shine in a big batch: our watermelon hibiscus iced tea and blood orange hibiscus iced tea, both caffeine-free and built for exactly this kind of overnight pitcher.
Steep Current’s loose-leaf iced teas are packed around this ratio — and if you skip the sugar, they still taste like something, which is very much a New Orleans idea: here’s why New Orleans never took to sweet tea. Can’t pick a flavor? Our New Orleans iced tea sampler has all six in one box.
