My new iced tea setup

I've been an aficionado of iced tea for decades ... For making tea at home I've mostly been using this thing:

And since I've had some extended family members in mooching the tea supply I've been supplementing with these:

Both of these taste fine ... I like moderately sweet tea from my youth in the south, I guess.

But the Mr. Coffee plastic tea makers over time can pick up whatever kind of tea or other stuff you brew in them and just don't taste the same after a couple of years.

I had noticed in the restaurant iced tea that I liked best that this pattern held: metal tea makers/pots were fine, plastic ones that had been there for who knows how long, not so good.

We moved recently and I googled around for 'metal tea maker' and came up with this:

It works with a half-gallon wide-mouth mason jar:

And finally I got a spout lid:

Total cost for this setup was around $20 ... but should last forever without getting plastic polluted. (Maybe I'll have to replace the lid in 10 years ...) Also no electricity! Takes maybe 12 hours to brew sitting on the counter ... I have two of these and just swap them out and sweeten the incoming one and put the tube with new tea in the outgoing one.

I tried loose leaf tea for starts, but tea bags work just as well and are a sight easier to clean up.

Happy iced tea drinking to you ... I thought this was a revelation after 20 years of Mr. Coffee!

I've been neglecting superstar SF author Daniel Suarez ...

I've enjoyed everything Daniel Suarez has published the last few years, but his latest one may be the best yet:

Flamboyant billionaire Nathan Joyce recruits a bunch of adventurers and scientists to try out for his mission to mine asteroids ... The description of the tryouts and training and the mission itself with all its complications is just fascinatingly well done and not to be missed.

Five stars: money back if not completely satisfied on this one.

The first two I experienced of Suarez was this duology:

These two concern rich and recently deceased game developer Matthew Sobel, who's apparently left a complex computer-game type set of deadly traps for former employees and law enforcement personnel.

One of these, Detective Sargent Pete Seabeck, is targeted for especially horrifying treatment ...

The second book continues the story with a critique of modern society, and the way Suarez weaves the whole thing together I thought was just brilliant.

Five stars for both of these, too, but warning as they both contain scenes of extreme violence ... I'm actually going back to replay the audiobook of Daemon after finishing Delta-V this past week.